N 


THE  TREATMENT 
OF  NATURE  IN 
ENGLISH  POETRY 


I 


THE  TREATMENT 
OF  NATURE  IN 
ENGLISH   POETRY 


BETWEEN   POPE   AND  WORDSWORTH 


By 

MYRA  REYNOLDS 


^      -^    OF   THE 

UNIVERSITY 

OF 


CHICAGO 

THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  CHICAGO  PRESS 

.  1909 


QiHEHiVu 


COPYEIGHT  1909   Bt 

The  University  of  Chicago 


Compoied  and  Printed  By 

The  University  of  Chicago  Pre»i 

Chicago,  Illinois,  U.  S.  A. 


PK5 

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PREFACE  TO  THE  SECOND  EDITION 

The  eighteenth  century  is  a  period  of  transition  and  as  such  its 
literature  holds  two  elements,  a  vital  impulse  past  its  prime  but 
still  dominant,  and  a  new  conception  gradually  emerging  into 
dominance.  It  is  the  interweaving  of  these  elements,  the  slow 
fading  of  the  old,  the  slow  gain  of  the  new  in  fulness,  definiteness, 
and  ardor  of  statement,  that  make  this  period  peculiarly  interesting 
for  detailed  study.  The  interest  persists  even  when  the  transition 
to  be  studied  is  limited  to  so  narrow  a  section  of  human  experience 
as  the  attitude  toward  Nature. 

The  investigation,  the  results  of  which  are  embodied  in  this 
book,  was  primarily  undertaken  to  determine  the  place  of  Nature 
in  the  poetry  before  Wordsworth.  Every  genius  is,  to  be  sure, 
more  or  less  of  a  miracle,  and  certainly  not  to  be  accounted  for 
by  any  conditions  of  literary  heredity  or  even  environment.  But 
he  cannot,  on  the  other  hand,  be  justly  thought  of  as  an  isolated 
phenomenon.  Though  not  the  direct  heir  of  any  particular  prede- 
cessors, he  is,  nevertheless,  in  a  vital  and  inescapable  way,  the 
heir  of  the  general  tone  and  temper  of  his  own  and  preceding 
times.  In  that  fact  lies  the  justification  of  a  study  along  historical 
lines  of  any  recognized  tendency  in  thought.  The  pleasure  of  the 
biologist  in  the  lower  forms  of  life  is  paralleled  by  the  delight  of 
the  student  of  literature  in  tracing  out  the  first  vague,  ineffective 
attempts  to  express  ideas  that  are  afterward  regnant.  In  the 
present  study  the  final  effect  is  one  of  surprise  to  discover  not  only 
how  early  the  new  thought  of  Nature  finds  expression,  but 
how  completely  the  ideas  of  the  period  of  Wordsworth  were  repre- 
sented in  the  germ  in  the  eighteenth  century.  The  whole  impres- 
sion is  that  before  the  work  of  such  men  as  Wordsworth,  Scott, 
Coleridge,  Shelley,  Keats,  and  Byron,  there  was  a  great  stir  of 
getting  ready.     It  may  fairly  be  said  that  before  Wordsworth  most 


19284S, 


vi  PREFACE  TO  THE  SECOND  EDITION 

of  his  characteristic  thoughts  on  Nature  had  received  explicit 
statement. 

In  the  pursuance  of  this  study  it  soon  became  apparent  that  to 
confine  it  to  poetry  was  to  limit  the  investigation  unwarrantably. 
The  interest  of  the  work  was  many  times  increased,  and  the  deduc- 
tions were  rendered  much  more  certain,  when  the  same  transitions, 
the  same  periods  of  change,  the  same  tastes,  the  same  emotions, 
revealed  themselves  side  by  side  in  poetry,  painting,  fiction,  travels, 
and  gardens.  Furthermore,  the  vitality  of  the  new  impulse  toward 
Nature  is  shown  by  the  number  of  directions  in  which  it  insistently 
demanded  expression.  Aknost  independently  of  each  other  the 
various  arts  seem  to  have  been  pushed  forward  from  within  to 
some  sort  of  recognition  of  the  growing  interest  in  the  external 
world.  In  each  art  there  seemed  to  be  an  unconscious  prepara- 
tion for  the  master  that  was  to  come.  Notably  does  this  appear 
from  the  chapter  on  painting.  Constable  and  Turner  were  fore- 
shadowed  and  prepared  for  as  evidently  as  was  Wordsworth. 
When  at  the  end  of  such  a  period  of  preparation  the  great  poet  or 
artist  comes,  he  is  great  by  virtue  of  his  power  to  penetrate  beneath 
literary  conventions  and  to  give  final  literary  form  to  the  half- 
articulate  thoughts  and  feelings  out  of  which  the  thoughts  and 
feelings  of  his  own  epoch  grow.  He  has  his  natural  place  in  the 
development.  The  significance  of  his  work  rests  in  the  fact  that 
while  it  directs  the  future  it  also  sums  up  the  past. 

The  first  edition  of  this  book  has  long  been  out  of  print.  The 
natural  impulse,  after  an  interval  of  ten  years,  is  to  subject  a  new 
edition  to  a  complete  revision,  with  the  rewriting  of  many  portions. 
Revision  as  drastic  as  might  be  desirable  has  not,  however,  proved 
practicable.  Various  studies  of  special  authors  have  been  brought 
up  to  date  in  the  light  of  new  material  concerning  them,  as,  notably, 
in  the  sketch  of  Lady  Winchilsea.  Two  chapters,  the  one  on 
"Painting"  and  the  one  on  " Gardening, "  are  entirely  new,  and 
it  has,  fortunately,  proved  possible  to  add  a  number  of  inter- 
esting illustrations  of  these  chapters,  mainly  from  old  prints. 
With  these  exceptions  the  book  remains  substantially  as  it  was 


PREFACE  TO  THE  SECOND  EDITION  vii 

ten  years  ago.  In  no  case  has  further  study  made  it  necessary 
to  modify  any  of  the  general  conclusions  on  the  basis  of  the  earlier 
work.  More  intensive  work  in  the  different  realms  has  happily 
but  reinforced  these  conclusions. 

Myra  Reynolds 

August,  1909 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS 

^  PAGE 

List  of  Illustrations xi 

Introduction xv 

CHAPTER 

I    The  Treatment  of  Nature  in  English  Classical 

Poetry       i 

•  II    Indications    of  a   New  Attitude   toward  Na- 
ture in  the  Poetry  of  the  Eighteenth  Century  5& 

III    Fiction 203 

IV    Travels 223 

V    Gardening 246 

VI    Landscape  Painting 273 

VII    GENEIL4L  Summary 327 

Bibliographical  Index 369 

General  Index 378 


IX 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

FACING  PACK 

Long  Leate 249 

''The  House  and  gardens  of  the  Rt.  Hon.  Thomas  Lord 
Viscount  Weymouth,  Baron  Warminster,  L.  KnyflF,  Del. 
I.  Kip,  Scul" 

Hagley  Park 261 

''A  View  in  Hagley  Park,  belonging  to  Sir  Thos.  Lyttleton 
Bart.,  to  whom  this  Plate  is  inscrib'd  by  his  most  obed't. 
Serv't.  T.  Smith.  G.  Vivares  Sculp."  Published  Oct. 
1749. 

John  Mmtland,  Duke  of  Lauderdale 275 

"From  the  original  of  Sir  Peter  Lely  in  the  Collection 
of  the  Right  Hon.  the  Earl  of  Lauderdale.  Drawn  by 
Wm.  Hilton,  R.A.  and  Engraved  with  Permission  by  I.  S. 
Agar."  The  print  here  reproduced  was  pubUshed  March 
I,  1820. 

Mrs.  Carnac 280 

By  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds.  In  the  Wallace  Collection, 
London.  From  a  photograph  by  the  Muchmore  Art  Com- 
pany, London. 

Squire  Hallet  and  His  Wife 283 

By  Thomas  Gainsborough.  Now  in  the  possession  of 
Lord  Rothschild.  From  a  photograph  by  Braun,  Clement 
&  Cie. 

A  Calm 286 

By  Willem  van  de  Velde.  In  the  Gallery  at  Dulwich, 
London.  "Drawn,  engraved  and  pubHshed  by  R.  Cock- 
bum,  Dulwich,  1818." 

Dunnington  Cliff 288 

"A  View  of  Dunnington  CHflF.  On  the  River  Trent  (five 
Miles  South  East  of  Derby)  belonging  to  the  Right  Hon- 

zi 


I 


xii  LIST  OF  ILLUSTR.\TIONS 

FACING   PAGE 

curable  the  Earl  of  Huntington,  to  whom  this  Plate  is 
inscrib'd  by  his  Lordships  most  Dutiful  and  most  humble 
Serv't.  T.  Smith.  G.  Vivares  Sculp.  Act  of  Parliam't. 
Augt.  25,  I745-" 

Derwentwater 291 

"A  View  of  Derwent-Water,  Towards  Borrodale.  A 
Lake  near  Keswick  in  Cumberland.  To  Edward  Steph- 
enson Esq'r.  of  Cumberland.  This  Plate  is  inscrib'd  by 
his  most  Obliged  humble  Servant  Will'm.  Bellers.  Painted 
after  Nature  by  William  Bellers.  Engraved  by  Messrs. 
Chatelin  &  Ravenet.  Published  according  to  Act  of  Parlia- 
ment October  the  loth  1752." 

Mount  Snowdon 293 

"A  View  of  Snowden,  in  the  Vale  of  Llan  Beriis,  in  Caer- 
nar\-on  Shire.  I.  Boydell.  Del.  &  Sculp.  PubHshed 
according  to  Act  of  Parhament  by  J.  Boydell  at  the  Globe 
near  Durham  Yard  in  the  Strand  1750." 

Cader-Idris 297 

''The  Summit  of  Cader-Idris  Mountain  in  North  Wales. 
Richard  Wilson  pinx't.  E.  &  M.  Rooker  sculpser't.  Pub- 
lished July  17,  1775  by  John  Boydell,  Engraver  in  Cheap- 
side  London." 

KiLGARREN   CaSTLE 3°° 

"Killgarren  Castle  in  South  Wales,  Richard  Wilson  pinx't. 
Will'm.  Elliott  sculp't.  PubHshed  July  17th  1775  by  John 
Boydell  Engraver  in  Cheapside  London." 

Snowdon 3^4 

By  Richard  Wilson.  In  the  Manchester  City  Art  Gallery. 
From  a  photograph  by  Sherratt  and  Hughes,  Manchester. 

The  ^Iarket  Cart 3°? 

Painted  by  Thomas  Gainsborough.  In  the  National 
Gallery. 

Pembroke 3^1 

"Engraved  by  I.  Walker  from  an  Original  Picture  by  Paul 
Sandby  Esq.  R.  A.     Published  May  ist  1797" 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS  xiii 


FACING  PAGE 


LoDORE  Waterfall 31  r 

"  Drawn  by  Jos'h.  Farington.  Engraved  by  W.  Byrne  and 
and  T.  Medland.  London.  Published  as  the  Act  directs, 
April,    1785." 

The  Wood  Cutters 318 

Painted  by  G.  Morland.  Engraved  by  W.  Ward.  Pub- 
hshed  by  T.  Simpson,  St.  Paul's  Church  Yard,  London, 
1792. 


^     OF   THr 

UNIVERSITY 

OF 


INTRODUCTION 

The  general  theme  of  the  treatment  of  Nature  in  literature 
is  not  a  new  one.  Schiller's  essay  entitled  "Ueber  die  naive 
und  sentimentale  Dichtung"  (1794),  was  the  first  attempt 
to  state  and  explain  the  difference  between  the  classical  way 
of  looking  at  Nature  and  the  modern  way.  The  externality 
in  the  classical  attitude  toward  Nature,  he  attributed  to  the 
fact  that  the  Greeks  were  in  their  thoughts  and  habits  of  life 
so  a  part  of  Nature  that  they  felt  no  impulse  to  seek  her  with 
the  passionate  longing  of  the  modern  poet,  whose  ardent  and 
heartfelt  love  of  Nature  is  but  the  result  of  a  mode  of  thought 
and  life  out  of  harmony  with  her.  This  essay,  however  inade- 
quate as  a  presentation  of  the  Greek  attitude  toward  Nature/ 
determined  the  lines  of  much  succeeding  study. 

Alexander  von  Humboldt  in  his  ^'Kosmos"  (1845-58),  in 
the  midst  of  his  scientific  generalization  and  his  encyclopedic 
accumulation  of  natural  facts,  takes  occasion  to  discuss  the 
treatment  of  Nature  in  poetry  and  landscape  painting.  The 
chapter  on  landscape  painting  is  chiefly  confined  to  such 
topographical,  botanical,  and  other  pictorial  representations 
as  serve  to  add  to  our  knowledge  of  distant  lands.  The 
boundaries  of  the  whole  question  are  enlarged  by  a  representa- 
tion of  the  profound  feeling  for  Nature  in  Semitic  and  Indo- 

I  Humboldt  was  the  first  to  attack  Schiller's  view.  He  said  that  after 
a  full  reading  of  Greek  and  Roman  authors  he  found  himself  unable  to 
accept  Schiller's  statement  without  many  reservations.  Later  Biese  spoke 
of  Schiller's  essay  as  "jener  bahnbrechende  Aufsatz,"  but  showed  that  the 
statement  of  the  case  was  inadequate  because  it  was  based  on  the  poetry 
of  a  single  period  and  thus  failed  to  take  account  of  many  phases  of  Nature 
presented  in  the  poetry  after  the  brief  "  reflexionslose  naive  homerische 
Zeit." 

XV 


XVI  INTRODUCTION 

European  races.  There  is  a  brief  study  of  the  mediaeval 
feeling  for  Nature  as  it  appears  in  Dante,  and  finally  of  the 
treatment  of  Nature  in  some  prose  writers  of  the  eighteenth 
century.  The  only  English  poets  mentioned  are  Shakspere, 
Thomson,  and  Byron,  the  subject  of  English  poetry  being 
disposed  of  in  less  than  a  page. 

In  Ruskin's  ''Modem  Painters"  (1843-60)  are  several  most 
interesting  chapters  on  landscape  in  classical,  mediaeval, 
and  modern  times.  "Of  the  Pathetic  Fallacy"  and  "The 
Moral  of  Landscape"  are  also  suggestive  though  misleading 
studies. 

Victor  de  Laprade's  "La  sentiment  de  la  nature"  (1866, 
1868)  contains  in  full  the  theories  already  suggested  in  the 
preface  to  his  "Les  symphones."  In  the  introductory  chap- 
ters he  outlines  his  conception  of  the  development  of  art.  He 
regards  architecture  as  essentially  the  expression  of  man's  in- 
terest in  religion;  sculpture  of  his  interest  in  the  demi-god  or 
hero;  painting  of  his  interest  in  the  complex  and  varied  life  of 
man  as  man;  while  the  characteristic  art  of  the  present  age 
is  music  with  which  the  love  of  Nature  is  closely  allied,  since 
both  affect  the  mind  indirectly  through  indeterminate  and 
vaguely  suggestive  harmonies,  and  both  tend  by  their  com- 
plexity and  subtlety  to  rouse  sweet  reveries,  luxurious  emo- 
tion, nameless  longings,  ineffectual  aspirations,  but  leave 
the  conscience  and  the  will  untouched.  No  one  can  read 
these  critical  studies  by  Laprade  or  his  earlier  poems  without 
feeling  his  enthusiastic  joy  in  the  presence  of  Nature.  But 
he  feared  this  joy  and  counted  it  a  part  of  the  concupiscence 
of  the  flesh  except  as  it  became  an  avenue  to  communion 
with  the  divine  spirit.  His  indictment  against  the  passion 
for  Nature  in  modern  music,  painting,  poetry,  fiction,  science 
is  that  the  material  is  everywhere  exalted  at  the  expense  of 
the  spiritual.     To  be  of  value  the  presentation  of  the  external 


>1; 


INTRODUCTION  xvii 

world  in  whatever  realm  of  art  should  subordinate  its  appeal 
to  the  senses,  and  emphasize  its  appeal  to  man's  inner  life. 
Laprade's  work  is  a  plea  for  idealism  as  against  realism.  In 
all  his  brilliant  presentation  of  the  attitude  toward  external 
Nature  of  different  races  in  different  epochs,  this  point  of  view 
must  be  taken  into  account.  In  his  rapid  survey  of  English 
poetry  the  poets  to  receive  closest  attention  are  Shakspere, 
Spenser,  and  Milton.  In  later  times  the  most  significant  of 
the  poets  who  "gravitent  autour  de  Lord  Byron"  are  Words- 
worth and  Shelley,  who,  in  their  attitude  toward  Nature,  are 
respectively  moralist  and  metaphysician.  Byron's  distinction 
is  that  he  alone  found  "le  juste  equilibre  entre  I'exuberance 
de  la  nature  et  celle  du  pur  esprit."  Thomson's  "  Seasons  " 
are  of  value  because  of  good  genre  pictures  and  vivid  descrip- 
tions of  English  sports,  but  the  initial  force  in  the  return  to 
Nature  is  Burns. 

Unquestionably  the  most  important  of  the  books  that  treat 
of  Nature  in  the  realm  of  art  is  Biese's  "Die  Entwickelung  des 
Naturgefuhls  im  Mittelalter  und  in  der  Neuzeit"  (1888).' 
The  book  is  written  with  enthusiasm  and  is  stimulating  and 
suggestive.  The  subject-matter  is  well  in  hand,  and  so 
thoroughly  organized  that  the  great  movements  in  the  his- 
torical development  of  the  love  of  Nature  are  easily  grasped. 
The  plan  is  comprehensive,  including  not  only  poetry,  but, 
in  briefer  outline,  landscape  painting  and  gardening,  and, 
incidentally,  even  fiction  and  philosophy.  The  least  satis- 
factory portion  of  the  book  is  the  treatment  of  the  love  of 
Nature  in  English  life  and  thought.     There  is  some  stress  on 

I  Biese  has  two  earlier  important  books:  "Die  Entwickelung  des  Natur- 
gefiihls  bei  den  Griechen"  (1882)  and  "Die  Entwickelung  des  Naturgefuhls 
bei  den  Romern"  (1884).  In  "Zeitschrift  fur  vergleichende  Litteraturge- 
schichte,"  Neue  Folge,  Siebenter  Band  (1894),  p.  311,  is  a  valuable  annotated 
summary  of  recent  (since  1882)  German  studies  on  "das  antike  und  das 
deutsche  Naturgeflihl." 


xviii  INTRODUCTION 

the  development  of  the  English  garden,  but  English  landscape 
painting  is  not  mentioned.  In  the  casual  mention  of  Eng- 
lish fiction  the  emphasis  is  on  Defoe.  In  poetry  two  epochs 
are  recognized,  that  of  Shakspere  and  that  of  Byron.  The 
chapter  on  Shakspere  is  a  close  and  valuable  study.  The 
work  of  Byron  is  estimated  with  justness  and  sympathy,  as  is 
also  that  of  Shelley.  But  the  study  of  Wordsworth  as  a  poet 
of  Nature  is  singularly  inadequate.  His  genius  is  considered 
as  essentially  of  the  pastoral-idyllic  order,  with  now  and  then 
glimpses  of  an  "echte  Liebe  fiir  die  Natur,"  and  an  unmis- 
takable pantheism.  He  is  chiefly  important  as  having  done 
for  Enojland  what  Scott  did  for  Scotland  and  Moore  for  Ire- 
land,  and  as  sounding  certain  notes  which  rang  again  in 
Byron  "in  verstarkter  Tonart."  Thomson  is  the  only 
eighteenth-century  poet  studied.  Here  again  is  a  failure 
to  recognize  the  real  importance  of  the  poet's  work.  Biese 
acknowledges  the  truth  of  Thomson's  separate  pictures  of 
Nature,  and  his  genuine  love  of  the  country,  but  denies  his 
importance  as  a  "pathfinder,"  saying  that  he  but  followed 
where  Pope's  "Pastorals"  and  "Windsor  Forest"  had 
marked  out  the  way. 

In  1887  appeared  John  Veitch's  ''The  Feeling  for  Nature 
in  Scottish  Poetry."  The  first  volume  begins  with  the  early 
romances  and  national  epics,  and  takes  up  the  chief  poets 
down  to  James  VI.  The  second  volume  is  devoted  to  the 
modern  period  from  Ramsay  to  David  Gray.  Most  of  the 
authors  treated  belong  to  the  nineteenth  century,  but  there 
are  admirable  brief  studies  of  Ramsay,  Thomson,  Hamilton 
of  Bangour,  Bruce,  Fergusson,  and  Burns.  There  is  also 
a  short  but  interesting  chapter  on  the  rise  of  landscape  paint- 
ing, with  especial  attention  to  its  development  in  Scotland. 
Veitch's  book  is  written  out  of  a  full  knowledge  and  warm 
appreciation  of  Scottish  poetry  and  of  Scottish  Nature,  and 


INTRODUCTION  xix 

his  critical  dicta  are  usually  trustworthy,  though  he  shows, 
perhaps,  a  tendency  to  overemphasize  the  influence  of 
Scottish  poetry  on  the  love  of  Nature  in  succeeding  English 
poetry. 

In  John  Campbell  Shairp's  ''Poetic  Interpretation  of 
Nature"  (1889)  are  to  be  found  studies  of  Homer,  Lucretius, 
and  Virgil;  of  Chaucer,  Shakspere,  and  Milton;  and  of 
Wordsworth.  Two  chapters  are  devoted  to  the  eighteenth 
century.  Ramsay  is  the  poet  to  whom  the  reappearance  of 
the  feeling  for  natural  beauty  is  traced.  Thomson  is  praised 
for  his  minute  faithfulness  in  description,  and  his  genuine 
love  of  the  country,  but  his  tawdry  diction  and  superficial 
conception  of  Nature  are  hea\7  indictments  against  him. 
The  chapter  on  Collins,  Gray,  Goldsmith,  Burns,  Cowper, 
Ossian,  and  the  Ballads  is  interesting,  but  from  its  brevity  is 
necessarily  inadequate.  The  most  suggestive  chapter  in 
the  book  is  the  one  in  which  there  is  a  classification  of  the  ways 
in  which  poets  deal  with  Nature.'  The  whole  subject  of 
the  treatment  of  Nature  in  poetry  is  an  attractive  one  to 
Mr.  Shairp,  and  he  frequently  recurs  to  it  in  his  "Studies  in 
Poetry  and  Philosophy"  and  "Aspects  of  Poetry." 

In  many  books,  also,  not  devoted  exclusively  to  the  treat- 
ment of  Nature  in  literature  there  are  special  studies  and  much 
running  comment  of  a  valuable  sort.  This  is  true  of  almost 
all  essays  on  the  early  nineteenth-century  poets,  and  especially 
so  of  the  various  essays  on  Wordsworth.  There  is  some- 
thing to  be  found  in  manuals  of  English  literature,  as  in 

I  (a)  They  express  childlike  delight  in  the  open-air  world,  (b)  They 
use  Nature  as  the  background  or  setting  for  human  action  or  emotion,  (c) 
They  see  Nature  through  historic  coloring,  (d)  They  make  Nature  s>'m- 
pathize  with  their  own  feelings,  (e)  They  dwell  upon  the  inhuman  or 
infinite  side  of  Nature.  (/)  They  give  description  for  its  own  sake,  (g) 
They  interpret  Nature  by  imaginative  sympathy,  (h)  They  use  Nature  as 
a  s>Tnbol  of  spirit. 


XX  INTRODUCTION 

Gosse's  *' Eighteenth  Century"  in  the  chapter,  ''The  Dawn 
of  Naturalism,"  in  various  notes  in  Perry's  "EngUsh  Litera- 
ture of  the  Eighteenth  Century,"  Phelps'  ''The  English 
Romantic  Movement,"  and  others;  also,  in  some  histories,  as 
in  Lecky's  "History  of  England  in  the  Eighteenth  Century;" 
in  some  philosophical  studies,  as  in  Leslie  Stephen's  "English 
Thought  in  the  Eighteenth  Century"  ("The  Literary  Reac- 
tion"), and  in  Stopford  Brooke's  "Theology  in  the  English 
Poets"  (passim);  in  various  literary  studies,  as  in  McLaugh- 
lin's "Studies  in  Mediaeval  Life  and  Literature"  ("The 
Mediaeval  Feeling  for  Nature"),  Vernon  Lee's  "Euphorion" 
("The  Outdoor  Poetry"),  Symonds'  "Essays  Speculative 
and  Suggestive"  ("Landscape,"  "Nature  Myths  and  Alle- 
gories"), Burroughs'  "Fresh  Fields"  ("Birds  and  Poets"),  and 
Fischer's  "Drei  Studien  zur  Englischen  Litteraturgeschichte" 
("Ueber  den  Einfluss  der  See  auf  die  Englische  Litteratur").' 
The  books  indicated  show  that  there  is  much  interest  in 
the  general  theme  of  Nature  as  an  element  of  art.  The 
literary  periods  that  have  been  most  studied  are,  however,  the 

I  For  additions  to  this  bibliography  see  "The  Journal  of  Germanic 
Philolog)',"  II,  239  (1898),  in  which  is  an  article  by  Mr.  Camillo  von 
Klenze  giving  a  comprehensive  resume  of  books  and  articles  dealing  with 
the  Nature-sense.  To  these  books  should  be  added  "Types  of  Scenery  and 
Their  Influence  on  Literature,"  the  Romanes  lecture  at  Oxford,  1898,  by 
Sir  Archibald  Geikie,  a  delightful,  sketchy  study  of  Cowper,  Thomson, 
Burns,  Macpherson,  Scott,  and  Wordsworth  in  relation  to  their  environ- 
ment; "The  Treatment  of  Nature  in  the  Works  of  Nicholas  Lenau"  (The 
University  of  Chicago  Press,  1902),  by  Mr.  von  Klenze,  an  admirably  full 
and  discriminating  study  of  the  attitude  toward  Nature  as  shown  by  one 
of  the  most  important  German  contemporaries  of  Tennyson  and  Browning; 
"The  Treatment  of  Nature  in  German  Literature  from  Gunther  to  the  Ap- 
pearance of  Goethe's  'Werther,'  "  a  careful  presentation  of  the  development 
of  the  love  of  Nature  in  the  half -century  before  1774  (Max  Batt,  The  Uni- 
versity of  Chicago  Press,  1902);  "  The  Feeling  for  Nature  in  Old  English 
Poetry,"  by  Elizabeth  Deering  Hanscom  ("Journal  of  English  and  Germanic 
Philology,"  V,  439)- 


INTRODUCTION  xxi 

Greek  and  Roman,  the  mediaeval,  and  the  modern.  The 
treatment  of  Nature  in  so  barren  a  time  as  the  eighteenth 
century  in  England  has  naturally  received  little  close  atten- 
tion. In  my  own  work  on  this  period  I  have  endeavored  to 
discover  what  indications  there  are  that  the  attitude  toward 
Nature  of  the  early  nineteenth  century  is  but  the  legitimate 
outcome  of  influences  actively  at  work  during  the  eighteenth 
century.     This  study  is  therefore  one  of  origins. 

I  have  divided  my  work  into  three  parts.  I  have  en- 
deavored to  give  first  a  general  statement  of  the  chief  char- 
acteristics that  marked  the  treatment  of  Nature  under  the 
dominance  of  the  English  classical  poets.  Then  follows  a 
detailed  study  of  such  eighteenth-century  poets  as  show  some 
new  conception  of  Nature.  The  third  division  is  made  up 
of  briefer  studies  of  the  fiction,  the  books  of  travel,  the  land- 
scape gardening,  and  the  painting  of  the  eighteenth  century, 
the  purpose  being  to  determine  in  how  far  the  spirit  found  in 
the  poetry  reveals  itself  in  other  realms  in  which  the  love  of 
Nature  might  be  expected  to  find  expression. 


I 


/  OF   THE 

UNIVERSITY 

OF 

;£4L/F0RM^ 


CHAPTER  I 

THE  TREATMENT  OF  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  CLASSICAL 

POETRY 

The  poetry  of  the  English  classical  period  falls  naturally 
into  four  subdivisions: 

1.  The  period  of  inception  may  be  reckoned  as  beginning 
with  Waller's  first  couplets  in  162 1  and  including  the  work 
of  his  followers,  Denham,  Davenant,  and  Cowley.^ 

2.  The  period  of  establishment  includes  the  work  between 
the  Restoration  and  about  1700.  Dryden  is  the  central 
figure. 

3.  The  period  of  culmination  is  a  brief  period  covering 
less  than  the  first  quarter  of  the  eighteenth  century.  Pope 
is  the  central  figure. 

4.  The  period  of  decadence  extends  from  about  1725  to 
the  end  of  the  century. 

Any  generalizations  concerning  the  attitude  of  this  classical 
period  toward  Nature  must  be  based  on  a  large  number  of 
specific  instances,  but  in  collecting  and  using  these  specific 
instances  certain  cautions  must  be  observed.  Chief  among 
these  is  the  necessity  of  keeping  in  mind  the  point  of  view 
from  which  the  study  should  be  made.  It  is  not  the  purpose 
to  discover  all  that  has  been  said  about  Nature  by  the  classical 
poets  between  1623  and  1798.  It  is  the  purpose,  rather,  to 
eliminate  exceptions,  and  to  dwell  on  the  general,  obvious 
qualities,  the  typical  features,  of  the  classical  poet's  conception 
of  Nature.  This  principle  determines  the  relative  importance 
of  the  periods  noted  above.  Illustrations  drawn  from  a  large 
number  of  poems  in  the  second  and  third  periods  would  serve 
as  the  basis  for  a  general  statement.     Illustrations  from 

1  Gosse,  "From  Shakespeare  to  Pope." 


2  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

periods  one  and  four  would  need  to  be  scrutinized,  for  they 
might  be  purely  classical,  or  they  might  be  survivals  of  the 
Elizabethan  romantic  age  or  prophecies  of  the  modern  roman- 
tic age.  Cowley,  for  instance,  belongs  to  the  first  classical 
period  because  he  wrote  in  couplets,  but  his  diction,  his  con- 
ceits, and  in  some  respects  his  attitude  toward  Nature  are 
post-Elizabethan  rather  than  classical.  Illustrations  from 
his  poems  are  of  value,  therefore,  for  the  present  purpose, 
only  when  they  are  in  accord  with  the  spirit  afterward  found 
in  the  time  of  Dryden  and  Pope.  So,  too,  Milton  and  Mar- 
vell,  though  coming  chronologically  within  the  first  and 
second  periods,  stand  in  the  main  quite  aloof  from  any  tenden- 
cies that  can  be  called  classical,  and  their  poetry  is  referred 
to  only  when  it  seems  to  illustrate  the  dominant  classical 
conception.  Abundant  and  valuable  illustration  of  the 
classical  conception  may  be  drawn  from  the  fourth  period 
because  tendencies  are  nowhere  more  clearly  shown  than  in 
the  inevitable  exaggerations  of  a  time  of  decadence,  but  the 
legitimacy  of  any  illustration  is  determined  by  its  likeness  to 
the  dominating  traits  of  the  preceding  periods.  While  this 
study  is  confined  in  the  main  to  the  poets  of  the  period, 
journals,  letters,  travels,  essays,  and  plays  have  been  quoted 
where  they  serve  as  proof  that  the  poetry  represents  the  spirit 
of  the  age  in  which  it  was  written. 

Pope  called  Wycherley  an  ''obstinate  lover  of  the  town,'" 
and  the  phrase  may  well  be  taken  to  mark  one  characteristic 
of  the  orthodox  classicists.  Poems,  letters,  journals,  biog- 
raphies, and  essays  bear  witness  to  the  reluctance  with  which 
the  men  and  women  of  this  age  bade  farewell  to  the  "dear, 
damned,  distracting  town."^  Charles  Lamb's  lifelong  de- 
votion to  Fleet  Street  and  the  Strand,  and  the  sentiment  of 
the  cockneys  who,  as  Hazlitt  said,  preferred  hanging  in  Lon- 
I  Pope,  "Letters,"  I,  73.  =*  Pope,  "A  Farewell  to  London." 


NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  CLASSICAL  POETRY  3 

don  to  a  natural  death  out  of  it,'  have  their  true  prototypes 
in  the  classical  age.  "  When  a  man  is  tired  of  London  he  is 
tired  of  life,"  is  Dr.  Johnson's  dictum.  Gibbon  said  that 
when  he  visited  the  country  it  was  to  see  his  friends  and  not 
the  trees.  Boswell's  only  justification  of  a  hastily  expressed 
liking  for  the  country  was  that  he  had  "appropriated  the 
finest  descriptions  in  the  ancient  Classicks  to  certain  scenes 
there.'"  But  not  even  the  classics  could  reconcile  most 
people  to  a  country  life.  It  was  dreary,  monotonous,  difficult. 
There  was  no  society,  no  news.  The  days  went  yawningly  by 
with  no  vivid  interests,  no  stirring  occurrences.  "No  person 
of  sense,"  exclaimed  Mr.  Mallet's  sister,  "would  live  six 
miles  out  of  London."-^  To  live  in  the  country  was  to  be 
buried.  Lord  Bathurst  looked  upon  his  sojourn  in  his 
country  home  as  a  "sound  nap "4  preparatory  to  Parliament. 
"  If  you  wish  to  know  how  I  live,  or  rather  lose,  a  life  in  the 
country,"  wrote  Pope,  "Martial  will  inform  you  in  one  line: 
Prandeo,  poto,  cano,  ludo,  lego,  caeno,  quiesco."5 

Pope  found  pure  air  and  regular  hours  a  physical  necessity, 
but  he  often  rebelled  at  his  banishment  from  town  delights,  as 
did  his  "fond  virgin"  when  compelled  to  seek  wholesome 
country  air. 

She  went  to  plain-work,  and  to  purling  brooks, 
Old-fashioned  halls,  dull  aunts,  and  croaking  rooks, 
She  went  from  Opera,  Park,  Assembly,  Play, 
To  morning  walks,  and  prayers  three  hours  a  day; 
To  part  the  time  'twixt  reading  and  bohea. 
To  muse,  and  spill  her  solitary  tea, 
Or  o'er  cold  coffee  trifle  with  the  spoon, 
Count  the  slow  clock,  and  dine  exact  at  noon.^ 

1  Hazlitt,  "On  Londoners  and  Country  People." 

2  Boswell,  "Life  of  Dr.  Johnson,"  III,  178  and  note. 

3  Pope,  "Letters,"  IV,   449.  s  Ibid.,   I,  67. 

^Ihid.,   Ill,  346.  6  Pope,  "Works,"  III,  226. 


4  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

Isabella  in  Dr}'den's  'The  Wild  Gallant"  speaks  the  general 
sentiment:  "He  I  marry  must  promise  me  to  live  at  London. 
I  cannot  abide  to  be  in  the  country,  like  a  wild  beast  in  the 
wilderness."^  So,  too,  Harriet,  in  ''The  Man  of  Mode," 
counted  all  beyond  Hyde  Park  a  desert,  and  said  that  her  love 
of  the  town  was  so  intense  as  to  make  her  hate  the  country 
even  in  pictures  and  hangings.^  In  "Epsom  Wells"  the 
apostle  of  "a  pretty  innocent  country  life"  is  the  boor, 
Clodpate,  but  Lucia  assures  him  that  people  really  live 
nowhere  but  in  London,  for  the  "insipid  dull  being"  of 
country  folk  cannot  be  called  life.^  It  was  in  much  the  same 
spirit  that  Lady  Mary  Pierrepont  responded  to  Lord  Mon- 
tagu's proposition  that  they  should  live  at  Wharnecliffe. 
"Very  few  people,"  she  said,  "that  have  settled  entirely 
in  the  country  but  have  grown  at  length  weary  of  one  an- 
other. "^  Her  preference  for  town  life  recurs  in  her  poem, 
"The  Bride  in  the  Country."  ' 

By  the  side  of  a  half  rotten  wood 
Melantha  sat  silently  down, 
Convinced  that  her  scheme  was  not  good, 
And  vexed  to  be  absent  from  Town. 

How  simple  was  I  to  believe 

Delusive,  poetical  dreams! 

Or  the  flattering  landscapes  they  give 

Of  meadows  and  murmuring  streams. 

Bleak  mountains,  and  cold  starving  rocks, 

Are  the  wretched  result  of  my  pains; 

The  swains  greater  brutes  than  their  flocks, 

The  nymphs  as  polite  as  the  swains,  s 

1  Dryden,  "Works,"  II,  74. 

2  Etherege,  "The  Man  of  Mode,"  Act  III,  sc.i;  Act  V,  sc.  3. 

3  Shadwell,  "Epsom  Wells,"  Act  II,  sc.  i. 

4  Montagu,  "Letters  and  Works,"  I,  72. 

5  Ibid.,  II,  505. 


NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  CLASSICAL  POETRY  $ 

When  Shenstone's  young  squire  went  forth  to  London  in 
search  of  a  wife  the  desired  lady  declared  that  she  "could 
breathe  nowhere  else  but  in  town."'  Lyttleton's  fair  maiden 
finds  country  life  "supinely  calm,  and  dully  innocent,"  and 
affirms  that 

The  town,  the  Court,  is  Beauty's  proper  sphere.^ 
Young's  Fulvia  had  a  similar  passion  for  the  town. 

Green  fields,  and  shady  groves,  and  crystal  springs, 
And  larks,  and  nightingales,  are  odious  things; 
And  smoke,  and  dust,  and  noise,  and  crowds,  delight, 
And  to  be  pressed  to  death,  transports  her  quite. 3 

In  Aaron  Hill's  poems  we  find  a  characteristic  contest  over 

the  respective  merits  of  city  and  country.     Philemon  exclaims, 

Let  rustic  sports  engage  the  lab'ring  hind. 
And  cultivated  acres  plough  his  mind; 
Let  him  to  unfrequented  woods  repair. 
And  snuflt,  unenvy'd,  his  lean  m.ountain  air. 

Damon  endeavors  to  defend 

Th'  unglorious  preference  of  a  country  life 

by  calling  in  evidence  Cowley's  retirement  to  the  shades, 
but  Philemon  triumphantly  shows  that  Cowley's  dislike  of 
the  town  was  a  clear  case  of  sour  grapes.  In  the  end  Damon 
recognizes  that  it  is  weak  and  unmanly  to  prefer  the  country. ^ 
Browne's  Celia  explains  to  Chloe  that  country  life  may 
become  endurable  if  one  does  not  give  herself  up  to  "dull 
landscape,"  but  learns  to  think  of  the  country  as  "the  town 
in  miniature."^ 

Such  expressions  as  these  are  typical.     They  indicate  the 

1  Shenstone,  "A  Ballad." 

'  Lyttleton,  "Soliloquy  of  a  Beauty  in  the  Country." 

3  Young,  "On  Women  " 

4  Aaron  Hill,  "Dialogue  between  Damon  and  Philemon." 

5  Isaac  Hawkins  Browne,  "From  Celia  to  Chloe." 


6  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

general  dislike  for  any  life  away  from  the  city.  And  even  those 
who  loved  the  country,  or  thought  they  did,  were  far  enough 
from  caring  for  any  but  the  tamest  of  its  possible  delights. 
Pope's  list  of  country  pleasures,  though  half  humorous,  is 
nevertheless  suggestive.     In  contrast  to  Mrs.  M.'s  devotion 
to  "play-houses,  parks,  assemblies,  London,"  he  depicts  his 
own  "rapture"  in  the  presence  of  "gardens,  rookeries,  fish- 
ponds,  arbours."'     When   Bolingbroke   "retired   from   the 
Court  and  glory  to  his  country-seat  and  wife""  he  bravely 
insisted  that  he  liked  the  change.     "Here,"  he  wrote  from 
Dawley,  "  I  shoot  strong  and  tenacious  roots.  I  have  caught 
hold  of  the  earth  and  neither  my  enemies  nor  my  friends 
will  find  it  an  easy  matter  to  transplant  me  again. "^     But 
we  must  join  Pope  in  the  laugh  against  such  a  catching  hold 
of  the  earth  when  we  learn  that  Bolingbroke  paid  £;20o  to 
have  his  country  halls  painted  with  rakes,  prongs,  spades, 
and  other  insignia  of  husbandry  in  order  to  make  it  perfectly 
evident  that  he  really  did  live  on  a  farm.^     The  genuine 
lover  of  the  country  in  the  classical  age  expended  his  enthusi- 
asm on  the  mild  and  easy  pleasures  of  a  well-kept  country 
house  easily  accessible  from  the  city.     That  a  sane  man 
could  choose  to  live  as  Wordsworth  did  in  the  Lake  District 
would  have  passed  belief.   In  general,  the  country  was  thought 
of  but  as  a  good  place  to  recruit  one's  jaded  energies,  or  as  a 
refuge  where  disappointments  might  be  hidden  and  disgrace 
forgotten. 

According  to  Gay, 

Whene'er  a  Courtier's  out  of  place, 
The  country  shelters  his  disgrace,s 

'  Pope,  "  Letters,"  IV,  476;  cf.  "From  Soame  Jenyns  in  the  Countr>'  to 
the  Lord  Lovelace  in  Town." 

2  Ibid.,  IV,  253.  4  Ibid.,  II,  133- 

3  Ibid.y  II,  113.  5  Gay,  "Fables,"  First  Series,  No.  33. 


NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  CLASSICAL  POETRY'  7 

and  his  deserted,  lovelorn  Araminta  felt  that  only  the  melan- 
choly shades  and  croaking  ravens  of  the  country  could  suit 
her  unhappy  fate.'  Watts  thought  that  none  but  "useless 
souls"  should  "  to  woods  retreat."^  On  the  whole,  the  words 
of  the  city  mouse  to  his  country  cousin  expressed  the  prevail- 
ing sentiment: 

Let  savage  beasts  lodge  in  a  country  den; 

You  should  see  towns,  and  manners  know,  and  men. 3 

The  poet  might  sing  the  charms  of  the  country  if  he  chose, 
but  he  was,  after  all,  as  Denham  said  of  Virgil  and  Cowley, 
only  "gilding  dirt."^ 

The  attitude  toward  Nature  in  the  literature  of  any  age 
may  be  tested  in  two  ways:  by  what  is  said,  and  by  what  is 
left  unsaid,  and  of  these  the  second  is  perhaps  the  more 
significant.  Certainly  in  the  poetry  of  the  classical  period 
the  persistent  ignoring  of  the  grand  and  terrible  in  Nature 
comes  home  to  the  mind  as  a  convincing  proof  of  the  prevail- 
ing distaste  for  wild  scenery.  And  when  we  apply  the  other 
test  and  find  that  the  conspiracy  of  silence  is  broken  only  by 
expressions  indicative  of  positive  dislike  of  such  scenes,  the 
case  becomes  a  strong  one.  This  point  may  be  clearly 
illustrated  by  a  somewhat  detailed  study  of  the  poetical 
treatment  of  the  mountains  and  the  sea. 

Rarely  in  the  long  period  between  Waller  and  Words- 
w^orth  do  we  find  any  trace  of  the  modern  feeling  toward 
mountains.  If  they  are  spoken  of  at  all  it  is  to  indicate  the 
difficulty  in  surmounting  them  or  to  express  the  general 
distaste  for  anything  so  savagely  and  untamably  wild.     It 

1  Gay,  "Araminta." 

2  Watts,    "To    David    Polhill."     Cf.    Shenstone,    "The    Progress    of 
Taste,"  iv,  172;  Lyttleton,  "To  Mr.  Poyntz." 

3  Cowley,  "The  Country  Mouse." 

4  Denham,  "On  Mr.  Abraham  Cowley's  Death,"  1.  79. 


/^^*T 


8  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

is  interesting  to  note  that  passages  expressing  the  most  active 
dislike  of  mountains  show  really  some  close  observation  and 
a  good  deal  of  picturesque  energy  of  phrase.  They  were 
evidently  the  outcome  of  a  personal  experience,  the  unpleas- 
antness of  which  demanded  forcible  epithets.  They  show 
that  when  men  were  compelled  by  the  exigencies  of  travel  to 
go  into  a  mountainous  region  there  was  not  wanting  a  per- 
ception of  certain  characteristic  mountain  qualities,  but  that 
these  qualities  were  only  those  exciting  repulsion  and  terror. 
In  no  case  does  a  sense  of  the  sublimity  and  beauty  of  moun- 
tains find,  or  even  apparently  seek,  expression.  This  is  true 
in  travels,  fiction,  biography,  and  letters,  as  well  as  in  poetry. 
A  few  typical  illustrations  may  be  given.  Howell,  who  went 
abroad  twice  before  1622,  strikes  the  keynote  of  the  travelers 
who  came  later.  He  distinctly  objected  to  the  "monstrous 
abruptness"  of  the  "Pyereny  Hills"  and  he  found  the  Alps 
even  more  "high  and  hideous."  He  was  obliged  to  admit 
that  the  Welsh  mountains  were  but  mole-hills  compared  to 
the  Alps,  but  he  thought  the  scale  more  than  turned  by  the 
fact  that  those  "huge,  monstrous  excrescences  of  nature" 
were  entirely  useless,  while  '' Eppint  and  Penminmaur"  at 
least  furnished  grass  for  the  cattle.'  John  Evelyn  regarded 
the  Alps  chiefly  as  an  unpleasant  barrier  between  the  "  sweete 
and  delicious"  gardens  of  France  and  the  corresponding 
topiary  paradises  of  Italy,  and  his  final  conception  of  them 
is  as  the  place  where  Nature  swept  up  the  rubbish  of  the  earth 
to  clear  the  Plains  of  Lombardy.^  Addison  was  another  of 
these  early  travelers,  and  he,  too,  found  the  journey  over  the 
Alps  most  trying.  The  "irregular,  misshapen  scenes"  of  a 
mountainous  region  gave  him  little  pleasure.^     He  preferred 

'  James  Howell,  "Epistolae  Ho  Elianae,"  Book  I,  sec.  i,  Letters  23,  43. 

a  John  Evelyn,  "Diary"  (1641-1706),  pp.  36,  185-89. 

3  Addison,  "Geneva  and  the  Lake,"  "Remarks  on  Italy." 


NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  CLASSICAL  POETRY  9 

the  safe  monotony  of  plains.  Both  Evelyn  and  Addison 
expended  all  the  descriptive  energy  they  had  to  spare  for 
mountains  on  Vesuvius,  but  it  was,  of  course,  its  character  as 
a  striking  and  curious  natural  phenomenon  that  attracted 
them.'  Burnet  of  the  Charter  House,  the  tutor  of  Lady  Mary 
Pierrepont,  in  his  ''Theory  of  the  Earth"  gives  a  theological 
reason  for  the  existence  of  mountains.  He  conceives  the 
present  world  as  a  gigantic  ruin,  the  result  of  sin.  Originally 
the  earth  was  perfectly  smooth.  "It  had  the  beauty  of 
youth  and  blooming  nature,  fresh  and  fruitful,  and  not  a 
wrinkle,  scar,  or  fracture  in  all  its  body;  no  rocks  nor  moun- 
tains, no  hollow  caves,  nor  gaping  channels,  but  even  and 
uniform  all  over.  And  the  smoothness  of  the  earth  made 
the  face  of  the  heavens  so  too;  the  air  was  calm  and  serene; 
none  of  those  tumultuary  motions  and  conflicts  of  vapours, 
which  the  winds  cause  in  ours.  'Twas  suited  to  a  golden 
age,  and  to  the  first  innocency  of  nature."  But  as  a  punish- 
ment for  sin  the  interior  fluid  of  the  earth  was  allowed  to 
break  through  the  beautiful  smooth  crust,  and  in  the  ensuing 
chaos  were  piled  up  those  "wild,  vast,  and  indigested  heaps 
of  stone  and  earth,"  those  "great  ruins"  that  we  call  moun- 
tains.^ In  1 71 5  Pennecuik  said  that  the  swelling  hills  of 
Tweeddale  were,  for  the  most  part,  green,  grassy,  and 
pleasant,  but  he  objected  to  the  bordering  mountains  as 
being  "black,  craigie,  and  of  a  melancholy  aspect,  with 
deep  and  horrid  precipices,  a  wearisome  and  comfortless 
piece  of  way  for  travellers."^  In  1756  Thomas  Amory  com- 
mented on  the  "dreadful  northern  fells,"  and  called  West- 
moreland a  "frightful  country,"  and  spoke  of  "the  ranges 
and  groups  of  mountains  horrible  to  behold, "^     So  late  as 

'■  Evelyn,  "Diary,"  p.  126;   Addison,  "Remarks  on  Italy." 

2  Thomas  Burnet,  "Theory  of  the  Earth,"  chapter  on  "Mountains." 

3  Pennecuik,  "Description  of  Tweeddale,"  p.  45. 

4  Thomas  Amory,  "Life  of  John  Buncle,"  I,  291;    II,  97. 


\ 


lo  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

1773  Dr.  Johnson  said  of  the  Highlands  of  Scodand:  "An 
eye  accustomed  to  flowery  pastures  and  waving  harvests  is 
astonished  and  repelled  by  this  wide  extent  of  hopeless 
sterility.  The  appearance  is  that  of  matter  incapable  of 
form  or  usefulness,  dismissed  by  Nature  from  her  care.'" 
In  the  same  year  Hutchinson  deprecates  the  "  dreary  vicinage 
of  mountains  and  inclement  skies"  in  the  Lake  District. 
He  describes  Stainmore  thus:  "As  we  proceeded  Spittle 
presented  its  solitary  edifice  to  view;  behind  which  Stain- 
more  arises,  whose  heights  feel  the  fury  of  both  eastern  and 
western  storms;  ....  a  dreary  prospect  extended  to  the 
eye;   the  hills  were  clothed  in  heath,  and  all  around  a  scene 

of  barrenness  and  deformity All  was  wilderness  and 

horrid   waste  over  which   the  wearied   eye  travelled   with 

anxiety The  wearied  mind  of  the  traveller  endeavours 

to  evade  such  objects,  and  please  itself  with  the  fancied 
images  of  verdant  plains,  purling  streams,  and  happy 
groves."^ 

The  attitude  toward  mountains  in  the  passages  already 
referred  to  appears  in  the  poetry  of  the  period  with  the  same 
general  tone,  though  with  less  insistence.  Throughout 
Waller's  poetry  the  only  epithets  applied  to  mountains  are 
"savage "3    and    "craggy."^     Marvell,    the    most    genuine 

I  Dr.  Johnson,  "Works,"  IX,  35.  Cf.  also  Dr.  Johnson's  remark  to 
Boswell,  "He  said,  he  would  not  wish  not  to  be  disgusted  in  the  High- 
lands; for  that  would  be  to  lose  the  power  of  distinguishing,  and  a  man 
might  then  lie  down  in  the  middle  of  them.  He  wished  only  to  conceal  his 
disgust."  See  also  his  answer  to  the  question,  "How  do  you  like  the  High- 
lands?" "The  question  seemed  to  irritate  him,  for  he  answered,  'How, 
Sir,  can  you  ask  me  what  obliges  me  to  speak  unfavorably  of  a  country 
where  I  have  been  hospitably  entertained  ?  Who  can  like  the  Highlands  ? 
I  like  the  inhabitants  very  well.'" — Boswell's  "Life  of  Johnson,"  V,  317,377. 

'  Hutchinson   "Excursion  to  the  Lakes,"  pp.  11,  17. 

3  Waller,  "To  My  Lord  Admiral." 

4  Waller,  "Story  of  Phoebus  and  Daphne." 


i\ 


> 


NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  CLASSICAL  POETRY  II 

lover  of  Nature  in  this  age,  was  yet  of  the  age  in  his  feeling 

toward  mountains,  for  he  characterizes  them  as  ill-designed 

excrescences  that  deform  the  earth  and  frighten  heaven,  and 

he  calls  upon  them  to  learn  beauty  from  the  soft  access  and 

easy  slopes  of  a  well-rounded  hill/     The  unpleasant  phrase, 

"high,  huge-bellied  mountains"^  in  one  of  Milton's  youthful 

poems  is  hardly  atoned  for  by  the  lines  in  "L'Allegro," 

Mountains  on  whose  barren  breast 
The  labouring  clouds  do  often  rest,^ 

and  his  poetry  is,  in  general,  marked  by  the  absence  of  moun- 
tain scenery.  Dryden's  most  famous  mountains  are 
"drowsy"  and  "seem  to  nod."*  In  Blackmore's  summary 
of  the  charges  made  by  Lucretius  concerning  the  "unartful 
contrivance  of  the  world,"  mountains  are  styled  "the  earth's 
dishonor  and  encumbering  load."  The  only  defense  made 
by  the  poet  is  that  these  incumbrances  do  nevertheless  restrain 
the  tides,  yield  veins  of  ore,  and  bear  forests  of  useful  wood.^ 
So  John  Philips  defends  his  comfortable  hypothesis  that 
nothing  is  made  in  vain  by  the  fact  that  even  "that  cloud- 
piercing  hill  Plinlimmon"  is  of  some  value  since  it  furnishes 
"shrubby  browze"  for  the  goats.^  And  Yalden  explains 
how  erring  Nature  supplies  her  own  defects  by  filling  with 
mines  the  "vast  excrescences  of  hills"  that  distort  the  surface 
of   the   earth. 7     Prior's   only   mountain    is   Lebanon   with 

1  Marvell,  "Upon  the  Hill  and  Grove  at  Billbarrow." 

2  Milton,  "A  Paraphrase  on  Psalm  CXIV." 

3  Veitch  calls  attention  to  the  fact  that  Shakspere  showed  little  if  any 
delight  in  mountains,  and  that  Milton  went  over  Switzerland  without 
bringing  back  an  image  of  the  Alps  which  he  thought  fit  to  preserve. — "Nature 
in  Scottish  Poetry,"  I,  107. 

4  Dryden,  "The  Indian  Emperor." 

s  Blackmore,  "The  Creation,"  iii,  409. 

6  John  Philips,  "Cyder,"  i,  106. 

7  Yalden,  "To  Sir  Humphrey  Mackworth." 


12  NATURE  IX  ENGLISH  POETRY 

"craggy  brow."^  Pope  has  some  "bright  mountains"  that 
serve  to  prop  the  incumbent  sky,^  and  he  occasionally  men- 
tions mountains  with  such  epithets  as  "  hanging,"^  "  hollow, "^ 
and  "headlong."-*  Tickell  showed  his  attitude  toward 
mountains  in  his  address  to  Lord  Lonsdale  whom  he  pro- 
posed to  visit  at  Lowther  Castle  near  Penrith,  declaring  that 
he  did  not  dread  the  harsh  climate  and  rude  country,  for  the 
Earl's  presence  would  be  sufficient  to  "  hush  every  wind  and 
every  mountain  smooth. "^  Parnell  instances  in  his  catalogue 
of  the  horrors  of  Ireland  her  hills  that  with  naked  heads  meet 
the  tempests.^  Dr.  Akenside  speaks  of  a  "horrid  pile  of 
hills."'  Along  with  this  frank  disapproval  of  mountains 
is  a  similar  dislike  for  their  concomitants  such  as  precipices, 
wildernesses,  and  even  dense  thickets.^ 

I  Prior,  "Solomon,"  i,  52.  4  Pope,  "Windsor  Forest,"  I.  210. 

3  Pope,  "The  Temple  of  Fame."        s  Tickell,  "Oxford,"  1.  441. 

3  Pope,  "On  St.  Cecilia's  Day."         6  Parnell,  "To  Mr.  Pope,"  1.  83. 

7  Dr.  Akenside,  "Pleasures  of  the  Imagination,"  ii,  274  (first  version). 

8  This  indifference  to  mountains  or  dislike  of  them  was  not  a  new  thing. 
For  further  illustrations  see  Perry,  "English  Literature  of  the  Eighteenth 
Century,"  pp.  144-48.  Humboldt,  "Kosmos,"  Book  II,  p.  16,  says:  "Von 
dem  ewigen  Schnee  der  Alpen,  wenn  sie  sich  am  Abend  oder  am  friihen 
Morgen  rothen,  von  der  Schonheit  des  blauen  Gletscher-Eises,  von  der 
grossartigen  Natur  der  schweizerischen  Landschaft  ist  keine  Schilderung 
aus  dem  Alterthum  auf  uns  gekommen:  und  doch  gingen  ununterbrochen 
Staatsmanner,  Heerfuhrer,  und  in  ihrem  Gefolge  Litteraten  durch  Hel- 
vetien  nach  Gallien.  Alle  diese  Reisenden  wissen  nur  liber  die  unfahrbaren 
scheusslichen   Wege   zu   klagen;    das   Romantische   der  Naturscenen   be- 

schiiftigte  sie  nie Silius  Italicus  ....  beschreibt  die  Alpengegend 

als  eine  schrecken-erregende  vegetationslose  Einode,  wahrend  er  mit  Liebe 
alle  Felsen-schluchten  Italiens  und  die  buschigen  Ufer  des  Liris  (Garigliano) 
besingt." 

An  interesting  early  exception  to  this  general  statement  is  Petrarch's 
description  of  his  ascent  of  Mt.  Ventoux.  In  a  letter  dated  April  26,  1335 
(Petrarca,  "  Lettere  Famigliari,"  I,  481),  he  tells  how  this  mountain 
ever  before  his  eyes,  had  been  from  childhood  a  temptation  to  him,  and 
how  he  was  finally  stimulated  to  make  the  ascent  by  an  account  of  the 


NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  CLASSICAL  POETRY  13 

One  cause  of  this  antipathetic  attitude  toward  mountains 
and  wild  scenery  is,  doubtless,  as  has  been  often  suggested, 
the  hardships  and  perils  of  travel  before  good  roads  were 
built.  Biese  quotes  several  eighteenth-century  letters  from 
German    travelers    to    show    how    much    "die    schlechten 

wide  view  gained  by  Philip  of  Macedon  from  one  of  the  highest  mountains 
in  Thessaly.  The  most  significant  passage  in  this  letter  is  that  in  which 
are  strangely  mingled  Petrarch's  pleasure  in  the  magnificent  prospect  and 
his  ascetic  fear  of  a  consequent  undue  subordination  of  the  soul  of  man. 

"At  last  I  turned  to  the  occasion  of  my  expedition.  The  sinking  sun 
and  lengthening  shadows  admonished  me  that  the  hour  of  departure  was 
at  hand,  and,  as  if  started  from  sleep,  I  turned  around  and  looked  to  the 
west.  The  Pyrenees — the  eye  could  not  reach  so  far,  but  I  saw  the  moun- 
tains of  Lyonnais  distinctly,  and  the  sea  by  Marseilles;  the  Rhone,  too, 
was  there  before  me.  Observing  these  closely,  now  thinking  on  the  things  of 
earth,  and  again,  as  if  I  had  done  with  the  body,  lifting  my  mind  on  high,  it 
occurred  to  me  to  take  out  the  copy  of  St.  Augustine's  Confessions  that  I 
always  kept  with  me;  a  little  volume  but  of  unlimited  value  and  charm.  And 
I  call  God  to  witness  that  the  first  words  on  which  I  cast  mine  eyes  were 
these:  'Men  go  to  wonder  at  the  heights  of  mountains,  the  ocean  floods,  rivers' 
long  courses,  ocean's  immensity,  the  revolutions  of  the  stars — and  of  them- 
selves they  have  no  care ! '  My  brother  asked  me  what  was  the  matter.  I 
bade  him  not  disturb  me.  I  closed  the  book,  angry  with  myself  for  not  ceas- 
ing to  admire  things  of  earth,  instead  of  remembering  that  the  human  soul  is 
beyond  comparison  the  subject  for  admiration.  Once  and  again,  as  I 
descended,  I  gazed  back,  and  the  lofty  summit  of  the  mountain  seemed  to 
me  scarcely  a  cubit  high  compared  with  the  sublime  dignity  of  man." 
Translated  and  commented  on  by  McLaughlin,  "The  Mediaeval  Feeling  for 
Nature."  See  also  Biese,  "Die  Entwickelung  des  Naturgefiihls,"  p.  151: 
"Und  somit  eroflnet  uns  dieser  Brief,  mit  seiner  Mischung  reinen,  modernen 
Naturgenusses  und  dogmatisch-asketischer  Riickbesinnung,  einen  Blick  in 
ein  zwie-spaltiges  Herz  eines  an  der  Wende  zweier  Zeiten  stehenden  Men- 
schen ;  es  reagiert  gleichsam  der  mittelalterliche  Geist  wider  die  aufkeimende 
moderne  Empfindung." 

Another  significant  utterance  comes  in  1541  in  a  letter  by  Gessner 
quoted  by  Biese,  p.  328.  It  shows  a  recognition  of  the  greatness  and  majesty 
of  the  Alps,  and  has  something  of  the  modern  feeling:  "So  lange  niir  Gott 
Leben  schenken  wird,  habe  ich  beschlossen,  jahrlich  einige  Berge  oder 
doch  einen  zu  besteigen,  teils  um  die  Gebirgsflora  kennen  zu  lernen,  teils 
um  den  Korper  zu  kraftigen  und  den  Geist  zu  erfrischen.  Welchen  Genuss 
gewahrt  es  nicht  die  ungeheuren  Bergmassen  zu  betrachten  und  das  Haupt 


14  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

Strassen"  had  to  do  with  the  failure  to  appreciate  the  roman- 
tic beauty  of  the  Alps.^  He  finds  another  partial  explanation 
of  the  small  interest  in  mountain  travel  in  the  fact  that  scien- 
tific study  of  natural  phenomena  such  as  glaciers,  geological 
formations,  mountain  flora  and  fauna,  was  as  yet  in  its 
infancy  and  that  thus  one  whole  class  of  motives  for  enduring 
fatigue  and  braving  difficulties  was  wanting.^  But  these  two 
reasons  do  not  sufficiently  account  for  the  lack  of  mountain 
fervor.  It  is  not  merely  good  roads  and  scientific  enthusiasm 
that  bid  men  seek  mountain  solitudes  today.  Preoccupation 
with  terror  and  fatigue  were  not  the  only  nor  the  chief  reason 
for  this  general  dislike  of  wild  scenery.  The  two  charges  even 
more  persistently  and  definitely  brought  against  mountains 
are  that  they  are  useless,  and  that  they  are  a  deformity  on  the 
surface  of  the  earth.  Now  the  first  of  these  is  but  another 
expression  of  the  dominant  utilitarian  standards  of  value, 
and  the  second  is  an  outcome  of  the  prevailing  desire  for 
orderly  and  systematic  arrangement.     Pronounced  irregu- 

in  die  Wolken  zu  erheben!  Wie  stimmt  es  zur  Andacht,  wenn  man  umringt 
ist  von  den  Schneedomen,  die  der  grosse  Weltbaumeister  an  dem  einen 
langen  Schopfungstage  geschaffen  hat!  Wie  leer  is  doch  das  Leben,  wie 
niedrig  das  Streben  derer,  die  auf  dem  Erdboden  umher  kriechen,  nur  um 
zu  erwerben  und  spiessbiirgerlich  zu  geniessen!  Ihnen  bleibt  das  irdische 
Paradies  versch lessen."  Biese  thinks  that  Rousseau's  "Nouvelle  Heloise" 
(1761)  "die  Augen  iiber  die  Herrlichkeiten  der  neuentdeckten  Alpenwelt 
oflfnete."  It  is  interesting  to  note  in  this  connection  that  the  beginning  of 
enthusiastic  interest  in  the  mountains  of  the  English  Lake  District  found 
expression  somewhat  earlier  in  Dalton's  poem  (1755),  Amory's  novel  (1756), 
and  Brown's  "Letter"  and  "Rhapsody"  (before  1766  and  probably  before 
1760).  The  earliest  of  the  Ossian  poems  belong  in  1760.  Goethe's  "Briefe 
aus  der  Schweiz  vom  Jahre  1779"  are  according  to  Biese  the  first  full  and 
enthusiastic  recognition  by  a  German  poet  of  the  romantic  charms  of  the 
Alps  ("Die  Entwickelung,"  etc.,  p.  393). 

^  Biese,  "Die   Entwickelung,"  etc.,    pp.    353-55;    Lecky,  "History  of 
England,"  VI,  180-83. 

»  Biese,  "Die  Entwickelung,"  etc.,  pp.  324,  328. 


1 


NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  CLASSICAL  POETRY  15 

larity  of  outline  was  as  irritating  to  the  artistic  consciousness 
as  was  exceptional  license  in  verse  forms.  Mountains  entered 
an  inevitable  protest  against  the  spirit  that  found  its  highest 
pleasure  in  the  symmetrical  complexities  of  a  typical  eight- 
eenth-century garden.  That  this  protest  was  on  a  great 
scale  with  accompanying  suggestions  of  mystery  and  of  a 
remote  irresistible  power,  gives  an  added  reason  why  the 
age  turned  thus  decisively  from  forms  of  nature  to  which  a 
romantic  age  yields  fullest  homage.  Thus  the  attitude 
toward  mountains  finds  its  real  explanation  not  so  much  in 
external  conditions  as  in  the  spirit  of  the  times. 
^  The  place  of  the  ocean  in  the  classical  poetry  is  likewise 
significant.  It  awakened  no  sense  of  elation  as  in  Byron, 
no  sense  of  mysterious  kinship  as  in  Shelley.  It  was  simply 
a  waste  of  waters,  dangerous  at  times,  and  always  wearisome. 
Though  more  often  mentioned  than  the  mountains,  it  received 
an  even  more  narrow  and  conventional  treatment.  Except 
in  some  elaborate  similes  there  are  few  descriptions  of  more 
than  a  line  in  length.  We  find  merely  casual  mention  by 
means  of  stock  epithets,  or  very  short  and  unmeaning  descrip- 
tive phrases.  To  Waller  the  sea  is  "  the  world's  great  waste," 
"a  watery  field,"  a  "watery  wilderness,"  or  a  "main,"  liquid, 
or  troubled,  or  angry,  as  the  case  may  be.'  Dryden's  epithets 
are  hardly  more  felicitous.  He  uses  "watery"^  with  an 
insistence  that  finally  becomes  ludicrous.  He  has  one  or 
two  little  ocean  pictures  written  apparently  for  their  own 
sake,  but  his  best  use  of  the  ocean  is  in  similitudes.^  In  suc- 
ceeding poets  the  treatment  of  the  ocean  is  exceedingly  com- 
monplace and  unimaginative.  Such  small  interest  as  the  sea 
aroused  was  of  a  prosaic,  utilitarian  sort.     Young's  "Sea 

1  Waller,  "A  Panegyric  to  My  Lord  Protector,"  st.  11;    "Instructions 
to  a  Painter, "  1.   228;  "  On  the  Danger  His  Majesty  Escaped,"  11.  5,  63,  156. 

2  Dryden  under  "Similitudes,"  p.  31,  and  "Diction,"  p.  43. 


J 


1 6         NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

Pieces"  and  "Ocean"  may  serve  as  examples,  and  they  are 
little  more  than  eulogies  of  England's  commercial  and  naval 
prowess.  It  is  for  Britain  that  "the  servant  Ocean"  "both 
sinks  and  swells."  It  is  solely  with  reference  to  her  pros- 
perity that  soft  Zephyr,  keen  Eurus,  Notus,  and  rough 
Boreas  "urge   their  toil." 

The  main !     The  main ! 
Is  Britain's  reign; 

The  main !  the  main ! 
Be  Britain's  strain,^ 

is  the  unvaried  theme.  The  few  descriptive  passages  are  of 
periods  when  "storms  deface  the  fluid  glass,"  and  seem  to 
have  been  composed  in  accordance  with  Pope's  famous  recipe 
for  poetical  tempests.^  The  most  popular  sea  poem  of  the 
eighteenth  century  was  Falconer's  "Shipwreck"  written  in 
1762.  It  is  a  sufficiently  remarkable  production  when 
thought  of  as  the  work  of  a  common  sailor  but  it  is  difficult 
for  the  modern  reader  to  understand  the  extravagant  praise 
bestowed  upon  it  in  its  own  day.^  Its  tame  and  conventional 
love  story,  its  descriptions  of  the  sylvan  scenes  where  Pale- 
mon  and  Anna  gave  pledges  of  undying  affection,  its  moraliz- 
ings  on  the  beneficial  effect  of  poetry,  the  evils  of  war,  the 
corrupting  lust  of  gold,  its  long  digression  on  cities  and 
heroes  "renowned  in  antiquity,"  its  invocation  to  the  Muses, 
its  mythology,  its  reverence  for  "sacred  Maro's  art,"  are  all 

I  Young,  "The  Merchant,"  strain  2,  st.  15;  strain  3,  st.  9;  strain  8, 
sts.  13-17. 

'^  For  a  Tempest  take  Eurus,  Zephyr,  Auster  and  Boreas  and  cast 
them  together  in  one  verse;  add  to  these  rain  and  lightning,  quantum  sufficit: 
mix  your  clouds  and  billows  well  together  till  they  foam,  and  thicken  your 
description  here  and  there  with  a  quicksand.  Brew  your  tempest  well  in 
your  head  before  you  set  it  a  blowing.     "The  Art  of  Sinking  in  Poetry." 

3  See  "Monthly  Review,"  XXVII,  197,  where  Falconer's  descriptions 
are  said  to  be  equal  to  "anything  in  the  Aeneid.'' 


NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  CLASSICAL  POETRY  17 

of  the  commonplace,  classical  order.  There  is  in  the  actual 
shipwreck  scene  some  vigorous  writing,  but  it  deals  almost 
entirely  with  the  emotions  of  the  sailors,  and  the  management 
of  the  ship.  It  would  be  difficult  to  find  any  really  effective 
lines  descriptive  of  the  storm  itself.  The  following  quota- 
tions may  stand  as  fairly  representative  of  the  best  passages : 

It  comes  resistless,  and  with  foaming  sweep 
Upturns  the  whitening  surface  of  the  deep. 

•  •••••••• 

But  with  redoubling  force  the  tempests  blow, 
And  watery  hills  in  dread  succession  flow. 


A  sea,  upsurging  with  stupendous  roU.^ 
One  of  the  most  striking  characteristics  of  the  descriptive 
parts  of  the  poem  is  the  daring  and  novel  use  of  technical  sea 
terms.     Such  lines  as, 

Reef  top-sails,  reef!  the  master  calls  again. 
The  halyards  and  top-bow-lines  soon  are  gone. 
To  clue-Unes  and  reef- tackles  next  they  run. 


Deep  on  her  side,  the  reehng  vessel  lies: 
Brail  up  the  mizzen  quick !  the  master  cries, 
Man  the  clue-garnets!  let  the  main-sheet  fly,^ 

are  praised  as  minutely  accurate  but  it  certainly  needs  a 
specialist's  training  to  understand  them.^  There  is  nothing 
new  in  Falconer's  poem  except  his  use  of  realism  in  describ- 

^  Falconer,  "The  Shipwreck,"  canto  ii,  11.  157,  268,  346. 

2  Ihid.,  11.  148-66. 

3  These  descriptions  rouse  Dr.  Clarke  to  a  climax  of  admiration. 
"Homer  has  been  admired  by  some  for  reducing  a  catalogue  of  ships  into 
tolerably  flowing  verse;  but  who,  except  a  poetical  sailor,  the  nursling  of 
Apollo,  educated  by  Neptune,  would  ever  have  thought  of  versifying  his 
own  sea-language?  What  other  poet  would  even  have  dreamt  of  reef- 
tackles,  haliards,  clue-garnets,  huntlines,  lashings,  laniards,  and  fifty  other 
terms  equally  obnoxious  to  the  soft  sing-song  of  modern  poetasters." — 
"Monthly  Review,"  XXVII. 


l8  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

ing  the  ship's  maneuvers.  The  sea  is,  to  be  sure,  more 
prominent  than  we  have  found  it  in  preceding  poems,  but 
it  is  the  same  "desert  waste,"  the  same  "faithless  deep," 
the  same  "watery  plain,"  and  is  deformed  by  the  typical 
classical  storm.  Strange  as  it  may  seem,  it  is  yet  true  that 
the  poets  of  sea-girt  England  were  very  slow  in  making  the 
discovery  of  the  ocean.  ^  The  main  points  in  the  eighteenth- 
century  conception  of  the  sea  were  its  usefulness  as  a  com- 
mercial highway  and  its  destructive  power  in  storms.  This 
impression  of  irresistible  force  is  sometimes  vivid  enough  to 
result  in  strong  phrasing,  but  the  changing  beauty,  the 
majesty,  the  mysterious  suggestiveness  of  the  sea  found  no 
expression  in  English  classical  poetry.  Even  in  the  poems 
that  mark  the  transition  spirit  the  adequate  word  for  the 
sea  is  surprisingly  slow  to  come. 

In  connection  with  the  failure  to  understand  or  love  the 
mountains  or  the  sea  we  may  note  the  avoidance  of  winter^  or 
the  conception  of  it  as  the  "deformed  wrong  side  of  the  year." 
Lyttleton  thoroughly  disliked  "gloomy  winter's  unauspicious 
reign,"^  and  Pope  said  that  its  bleak  prospects  set  his  very 
imagination  a-shivering.^  Lady  Montagu  called  the  glisten- 
ing snows  a  painful  sight,  and  said  that  the  whole  country  was 
in  winter  "deform'd  by  rains  and  rough  with  blasting  winds." 
The  "icy,  cold,  depressing  hand"  of  winter,  brought  in  a 
season  of  privations,  discomfort,  and  dangers.  Throughout 
the  classical  period  the  typical  phrases  are  "shuddering 
winter,"  "winter's  dreary  gloom,"  "the  sad,  inverted  year." 
Storm  and  blasts  "deface  the  year."     Hailstorms  "deform 

»  Biese  notes  the  same  fact  with  regard  to  German  poetry  ("Die  Ent- 
wickelung,"  p.  320). 

a  Cf.  Veitch,  'Teeling  for  Nature,"  I,  117. 

3  Lyttleton,  "An  Epistle  to  Mr.  Pope." 

4  Pope,  "Letters,"  I,  178. 


NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  CLASSIC\L  POETRY  19 

the  flowery  spring."     Clouds  "sadden  the  inverted  year." 

Winter's  "joyless  reign"   is  a  season  marked  by  "dusky 

horrors." 

Fierce  winter  desolates  the  year, 
Deserts  of  snow  fatigue  the  eye, 
Successive  tempests  bloat  the  sky 
And  gloomy  damps  oppress  the  soul, 

is  a  typical  description.^  Another  indication  of  the  dislike 
of  this  season  is  found  in  a  curious  "  Pastoral"  by  Washbourne 
in  which  hell  is  represented  as  a  place  where  it  is  "alwaies 
winter."^  It  will  be  observed  later  that  a  sense  of  joy  in  / 
winter  scenes  is  one  of  the  very  early  indications  of  a  reviving 
interest  in  the  outdoor  world. 

Correspondent  with  the  dislike  and  neglect  of  the  grand 
and  the  terrible  in  Nature  is  a  similar  feeling  toward  such 
aspects  of  the  external  world  as  especially  suggest  mystery, 
remoteness,  unseen  forces.  That  this  is  true  may  be  seen  by 
a  study  of  the  sky  phenomena  that  appear,  or  fail  to  appear, 
in  this  classical  poetry.  The  day-time  sky  is  but  briefly  and 
vaguely  mentioned  or  it  passes  unobserved.  A  phrase  so 
imaginative  5,s  Blackmore's  "blue  gulph  of  interposing  sky"^ 

1  For  illustrative  passages,  see  Montagu,  "Letters  and  Works,"  II,  464; 
Congreve,  "Tears  of  Amaryllis,"  1.  50;  Broome,  "Daphnis  and  Lycidas," 
1.  47;  Shenstone,  "Upon  a  Visit  in  Winter;"  Pitt,  "Hymn  to  Apollo;" 
Hughes,  "Myra;"  Savage,  "Wanderer,"  i,  42,  52;  John  Scott,  "Elegy  on 
Winter;"  Akenside,  "On  the  Winter  Solstice." 

2  For  a  similar  dislike  of  winter  in  mediaeval  poetry  see  McLaughlin, 
"Studies  in  Mediaeval  Life  and  Literature,"  p.  20.  He  quotes  as  typical  the 
following  from  a  Latin  student  song:  "The  cold  icy  harshness  of  winter, 
its  fierceness,  and  dull,  miserable  inactivity." 

3  Blackmore,  "Creation,"  ii,  393.     Cf.  Wordsworth's 

The  chasm  of  sky  above  my  head 
Is  heaven's  profoundest  azure  ....  an  abyss 
In  which  the  everlasting  stars  abide. — "Excursion,"  iii,  94-98. 

Cf.  also  Dryden's  "The  abyss  of  heaven,  the  court  of  stars"  ("Works," 
IV,  76). 


ry 


20         NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

is  rare.  In  general  it  is  only  the  more  striking  aspects  of  the 
sky  that  are  noticed,  such  aspects  as  would  catch  the  atten- 
tion of  a  child  or  of  a  mere  casual  observer.  Fleeting,  delicate 
effects  are  unheeded.  Clouds  receive  little  attention  except 
as  they  portend  or  accompany  a  storm,  and  even  then  their 
chief  use  is  in  similitudes.  Apparently  the  best-known 
appearance  of  the  day-time  sky  is  the  rainbow.  But  though 
it  is  often  mentioned  there  is  singularly  little  variety  in  the 
phrases  used  to  describe  it.  A  brief  summary  of  those 
phrases  most  frequently  used  is  interesting:  "Painted 
clouds;"  "the  clouds'  gaudy  bow;"  "the  gaudy  heavenly 
bow;"  "the  watery  bow;"  "the  painted  bow;"  "painted 
tears;"  "the  gaudy  drapery  of  heaven's  fair  bow;"  "the 
showery  arch;"  the  bow  "painted  by  Iris;"  the  bow  "deck'd 
like  a  gaudy  bride;"  "the  painted  arch  of  summer  skies,"' 
and  so  on  through  a  wearisome  list  of  kaleidoscopic  combina- 
tions of  the  same  words.  The  constant  repetition  of  adjec- 
tives so  unmeaning  as  "watery"  and  "showery,"  or  so 
external  and  artificial  as  "gaudy"  and  "painted"  is  as 
characteristic  of  the  general  attitude  toward  Nature  as  is  the 
fact  that  the  attention  of  poets  should  have  been  concentrated 
on  the  obvious  beauties  of  the  rainbow  rather  than  on  the 
finer,  more  subtle  charms  of  the  sky.  In  the  same  way 
sunrise,  and  especially  sunset,  are  often  mentioned  and 
occasionally  described.  But  there  is  practically  no  dis- 
criminating and  appreciative  study  of  what  was  actually 
to  be  seen  in  the  heavens.  It  was  more  natural  to  sit  at 
home  and  read  the  classics,   and  then  announce  that  the 

•  For  illustrative  passages,  see  Waller,  "Of  the  Lady;"  Cowley, 
Davideis,"  ii,  440;  "Hymn  to  Light,"  and  "Shortness  of  Life,"  st.  11; 
Young,  "Ocean,"  st.  23;  Broome,  "Paraphrase  of  Ecclesiastcs; "  Yalden, 
"Hymn  to  Morning;"  John  Philips,  "Cyder,"  ii,  293;  Tickell,  "Prospect  of 
Peace;"  Gay,  "The  Espousal;"  Rowe,  "The  Queen's  Success;"  Watts, 
"Disappointment;"   Pitt,  "Verses,"  etc.,  etc. 


NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  CLASSICAL  POETRY  21 

golden  god  of  day  "drives  down  his  flaming  chariot  to 
the  sea.'" 

'Bright  had,  as  might  be  expected,  little  charm  or  sug- 
gestiveness.  Moonlight  also  plays  a  most  subordinate  part 
in  this  poetry. "^  We  seldom  find  anything  more  direct  or 
vivid  than  the  time-honored  statement  that  "fair"  or  "pale" 
Cynthia  "mounts  the  vaulted  sky,"  and  "adorns  the  night" 
with  her  silver  beams. ^ 

The  night  sky  was  counted  beautiful  because  of  its  stars. 
The  recurrent  conception  is  that  the  azure  heavens  are  adorned 
with  these  orbs  of  gold.  The  favorite  words  are  "spangled" 
and  "gilded."4  In  Young's  "Night  Thoughts"  we  might 
expect  to  find  some  faithful  and  sympathetic  study  of  the 

1  For  descriptions  of  this  sort,  see  Hughes,  "Court  of  Neptune;" 
Prior,  "Solomon,"  iii,  557;  Broome,  "Poem  on  Death,"  1.  151;  Gay,  "Rural 
Sports,"  ii,  323;  Gay,  "Wine,"  1.  141;  Beattie,  "The  Minstrel,"  i,  17;  etc., 
etc. 

2  Cf.  Biese,  "Die  Entwickelung,"  etc.,  p.  307. 

3  The  following  are  illustrative  phrases:  "Silver  Cynthia  lights  the 
world,"  Garth,  "Claremont,"  I.  284;  "Pale  Cynthia  mounts  the  vaulted  sky," 
Shenstone,  "Elegy  VI;"  "Cynthia  came,  riding  on  her  silver  car,"  Beattie, 
"The  Minstrel,"  ii,  12;  "Cynthia's  silver  white,"  Hughes,  "The  Picture;" 
"Cynthia,  fair  regent  of  the  night,"  Gay,  "Trivia,"  iii,  3;  Cynthia's  silver 
ray,"  Addison,  "Imitation  of  Milton;"  "Cynthia,  great  Queen  of  Night," 
Garth,  "Dispensary,"  v,  282;  "Pale  Cynthia's  melancholy  light,"  Falconer, 
"Shipwreck,"  i,  311. 

4 The  following  are  illustrative  phrases:  "Rich  spangles,"  Waller, 
"Of  the  Queen;"  "Spangled  nights,"  Cowley,  "Davideis,"  i,  94;  "Span- 
gled sphere,"  Cowley,  "The  Extasy;"  " Burning  spangles  of  sidereal  gold," 
Broome, "Paraphrase  of  Eccl.;"  "Freezing  spangles,"  Tickell,  "On  the 
Prospect  of  Peace;"  "The  sky  spangled  with  a  thousand  eyes,"  Gay, 
"Fables,"  i,  11;  "Spangled  pole,"  Pitt,  "On  the  Death  of  Mr.  Stanhope;" 
"Heaven's  gilded  troops,"  Cowley,  "Davideis,"  i,  183;  "Stars  that  gild 
the  gloomy  night,"  Parnell,  "Hymn  to  Contentment;"  "Twinkling  stars 
who  gild  the  skies,"  Watts,  "Sun,  Moon,"  etc.;  "Shooting  star  that  gilds 
the  night,"  Somerville,  "Hobbinol,"  iii,  261;  "Stars  that  gild  the  northern 
skies,"  Pitt,  "Congress  of  Cambray;"  "Meteor  that  gilds  the  night," 
Somerville,  "Field  Sports,"  i,  139;  "Globes  of  light  in  fields  of  azure  shine," 
Watts,  "God's  Dominion;"  "Orbs  of  gold  in  fields  of  azure  lie,"  Parnell, 
"Queen  Anne's  Peace,"  I.  38;  "Yon  blue  tract  enriched  with  orbs  of  light," 
Parnell,  "David,"  I.  358. 


22  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

nocturnal  heavens,  but  in  the  first  eight  books  not  seventy- 
five  lines  refer  even  remotely  to  external  Nature,  and  in  the 
ninth  book  the  stress  is  laid  on  "  the  moral  emanations  of  the 
skies."  In  his  efforts  to  find  a  sufficiently  varied  star  vocabu- 
lary, Young  was  driven  to  the  invention  of  some  new  phrases, 
but  in  no  case  do  they  show  imaginative  power.  They  are 
perfunctory  and  stiff  and  indicate  that  his  mind  was  on  the 
"system  of  divinity"  he  meant  his  stars  to  teach  rather  than 
on  the  stars  themselves.'  In  Burnet's  "Theory  of  the  Earth," 
a  work  already  quoted  from,  we  find  a  striking,  because  an 
exaggerated,  example  of  the  way  an  undue  love  of  order  could 
modify  one's  aesthetic  perception.  Burnet  enjoyed  the  night 
sky  but  he  felt  that  the  stars  might  have  been  more  artistically 
arranged : 

They  lie  carelessly  scattered  as  if  they  had  been  sown  in  the  heaven 
like  seed,  by  handfuls,  and  not  by  a  skilful  hand  neither.  What  a 
beautiful  hemisphere  they  would  have  made  if  they  had  been  placed 
in  rank  and  order;  if  they  had  all  been  disposed  into  regular  figures, 
and  the  little  ones  set  with  due  regard  to  the  greater,  and  then  all 
finished  and  made  up  into  one  fair  piece  or  great  composition  according 
to  the  rules  of  art  and  symmetry!  What  a  surprising  beauty  this 
would  have  been  to  the  inhabitants  of  the  earth !  What  a  lovely  roof 
to  our  little  world!  This  indeed  might  have  given  us  some  tempta- 
tion to  have  thought  that  they  had  been  all  made  for  us;  but  lest  any 
such  vain  imagination  should  now  enter  into  our  thoughts  Providence 
(besides  more  important  reasons)  seems  on  purpose  to  have  left  them 
under  the  negligence  or  disorder  which  they  appear  unto  us.* 

The  final  impression  from  the  study  of  these  passages  that 

'  Some  of  Young's  phrases  are  "rolling  spheres,"  "tuneful  spheres," 
"revolving  spheres,"  "unnumbered  lustres,"  "sparks  of  night,"  "lucid 
orbs,"  "radiant  choir,"  "etherial  fires,"  "mathematic  glories,"  "aerial 
racers,"  "midnight  counselors,"  "nocturnal  suns,"  "etherial  armies," 
"radiant  lamps,"  "splendours,"  "ambient  orbs,"  "nocturnal  sparks," 
"night's  radiant  scale,"  etc. 

2  Burnet,  "Theory  of  the  Earth,"  chapter  on  "Stars."  Cf.  Prior, 
"Solomon,"  i,  502-11. 


\ 


NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  CLASSICAL  POETRY  23 

refer  to  stars  or  moonlight  is  that  the  poets  of  this  period  were 

not  unlike  Peter  Bell  into  whose  heart  "nature  ne'er  could 

find  the  way." 

Nor  for  the  moon  cared  he  a  tittle, 
And  for  the  stars  he  cared  as  little.^ 

Night  itself,  aside  from  its  starry  glories,  was  thought  of 
but  to  be  feared  for  its  brown  horrors  and  melancholy 
shades.  The  conception  of  daylight  as  useful  and  safe  was 
a  part  of  classical  good  sense.  The  earliest  poem  in  which  we 
find  the  beauty  and  something  of  the  spiritual  power  of  night 
represented  is  by  Lady  Winchilsea.  Later  we  find  the 
characteristic  sentimental  melancholy  of  the  poets  involved 
in  a  tissue  of  moonlight  and  mystery,  while  the  faint  colors 
and  pearly  dews  of  the  dawn,  and  the  gentle  sadness  of  evening 
shades,  or  in  extreme  cases,  even  midnight  glooms,  seem  to 
be  the  only  fit  setting  for  struggling  emotions  and  vague 
aspirations.  There  are  also,  as  we  shall  see,  throughout  the 
romantic  revival,  not  infrequent  studies  of  the  sky,  especially 
of  sunrise  and  sunset,  from  what  we  may  call  the  artist's 
point  of  view.  But  all  this  belongs  to  the  new  spirit  and  is  a 
very  evident  break  from  classical  traditions.  Poetry  in  which 
the  classical  note  is  dominant  shows  the  utmost  coldness  and 
barrenness  in  all  that  has  to  do  with  the  beauty  and  signifi- 
cance of  the  sky  whether  by  night  or  by  day.^ 

1  Wordsworth,  "Peter  Bell." 

'  Ruskin  ("Modern  Painters,"  III,  248)  comments  on  Dante's  "intense 
detestation  of  all  mist,  rack  of  cloud  or  dimness  of  rain."  McLaughlin 
says  of  clouds,  moonlight,  etc.:  "Let  any  reader  of  mediaeval  poetry  recall 
how  imperceptible  a  part  they  play  in  it,  even  as  plain  facts  of  description. 
A  line  in  one  of  the  Latin  songs  expresses  the  feeling:  their  thought  of  clouds 
is  how  delightful  not  to  see  them.  Moonlight,  too,  is  seldom  dwelt  on  as 
poetical;  the  most  romantic  touch  that  comes  to  my  mind  with  it,  is  in 
Chrestien  de  Troyes  where  it  shines  over  the  reconciliation  of  estranged 
lovers.  Just  as  we  find  little  notice  of  sunrise,  sunset,  clouds,  and  moon, 
we  find  little  feeling  for  the  stars.     They  are  mentioned  occasionally  in  a 


\ 


24  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

In  contrast  to  the  general  turning  away  from  the  grand 
or  the  mysterious  in  Nature  we  find  a  certain  friendly  feeling 
toward  the  gentler  forms  of  outdoor  life.  Spring  and  sum- 
mer, blue  skies,  gently  sloping  hills,  flowery  valleys,  cool 
springs,  and  shady  groves  appear  in  the  poetry  with  a  fre- 
quency indicative  of  some  real  delight  in  them.'  But  real 
affection  for  Nature  even  in  her  idyllic  forms,  an  affec- 
tion the  evident  outgrowth  of  personal  experience,  is  the 
exception  rather  than  the  rule.  When  such  regard  for  Nature 
is  apparent,  however  narrow  in  scope,  it  is  rightly  to  be 
regarded  as  an  indication  of  a  new  feeling  toward  the 
external  world,  for  in  general  these  so-called  idyllic  descrip- 
tions are  to  the  last  degree  artificial  and  unreal.  They  show 
that  what  the  poet  really  enjoyed  was  not  so  much  Nature 
itself,  as  the  creation  of  fanciful  pictures  of  Nature,  the  flow- 
ing combination  of  attractive  details  into  such  scenes  as  he 
would  like  to  find  in  the  country  in  case  he  should  go  there. 
Garth's   description   of   the   Fortunate   Islands   is   typical. 

There 

No  blasts  e'er  discompose  the  peaceful  sky, 
The  springs  but  murmur,  and  the  winds  but  sigh. 
The  tuneful  swans  on  gliding  rivers  float 
And  warbling  dirges  die  on  every  note. 

facile  way,  though  scarcely  ever  with  manifest  sentiment." — "  Studies  in 
Mediaeval  Life  and  Literature,"  p.  21.  Mr.  Symonds  says  of  the  same 
period:  "The  earth  is  felt  chiefly  through  the  delightfulness  of  healthy 
sensations.  The  stars  and  clouds,  and  tempests  of  the  heavens,  the  ever- 
recurring  miracle  of  sunrise,  the  solemn  pageant  of  sunsetting  are  almost 
as  though  they  were  not  in  this  literature." — J.  A.  Symonds,  "Essays  Specu- 
lative and  Suggestive,"  p.  300. 

'  In  commenting  on  mediaeval  out-door  poetry  Vernon  Lee  says 
("Euphorion,"  p.  120):  "Spring,  spring,  endless  spring— for  three  long  cen- 
turies throughout   the  world  a  dreary  green  monotony  of  spring 

Moreover  this  mediaeval  spring  is  the  spring  neither  of  the  shepherd,  nor 
of  the  farmer,  nor  of  any  man  to  whom  spring  brings  work  and  anxiety  and 
hope  of  gain;  it  is  a  mere  vague  spring  of  gentlefolk,  or  at  all  events  of 
well-to-do  burgesses,  taking  their  pleasure  on  the  lawns  of  castle  parts." 


NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  CLASSICAL  POETRY  25 

Where  Flora  treads,  her  Zephyr  garlands  flings, 
And  scatters  odors  from  his  purple  wings; 
Whilst  birds  from  woodbine  bowers  and  jasmine  groves 
Chant  their  glad  nuptials  and  unenvy'd  loves. 
Mild  seasons,  rising  hills,  and  silent  dales. 
Cool  grottoes,  silver  brooks,  and  flowery  vales, 
Groves  filled  with  palmy  shrubs,  in  pomp  appear. 
And  scent  with  gales  of  sweet  the  circling  year.^ 

The  details  of  this  listless,  luxurious  description  are  such 
as  are  combined  and  recombined  in  many  a  picture  of  sup- 
posedly English  scenes.  The  poet  found  his  pleasure  in  the 
vague,  highly  generalized  representation  of  such  scenery  as 
might  exist  in  some  imagined  Elysium  or  Garden  of  Eden. 
The  final  effect  on  the  mind  of  the  reader  is  never  one  of 
reality.  All  is  traditional  and  bookish.  Perhaps  there  is 
no  more  effective  way  of  showing  the  general  characteristics 
of  these  poetical  descriptions  than  by  an  accumulation  of 
examples.  Since  there  is  no  danger  of  spoiling  the  poetry, 
it  may  be  permissible  for  purposes  of  emphasis,  to  print 
in  italics  such  phrases  as  belong  to  the  common  poetical 
stock.  The  first  passage  is  Rosamond's  description  of 
Woodstock  Park: 

Flowery  mountains, 
Mossy  fountains, 
Shady  woods, 
Crystal  -floods.'^ 

Here  the  union  of  phrases,  all  conventional  in  their  character, 
is  entirely  fortuitous  and  undiscriminating.  It  is  impossible 
not  to  feel  that  Addison  picked  up  his  items  at  random, 
according  to  the  scheme  of  his  verse.  Take  next  this  invoca- 
tion by  Broome: 

I  Garth,  "Dispensary,"  iv,  309. 

a  Addison,  "  Rosamond,"  Act  I,  so.  i.  Cf.  a  longer  description  in  the 
same  poem  beginning,  "O  the  soft,  delicious  view"  (Act  II,  sc.  3). 


26         NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

Hail  ye  soft  seats !  ye  limpid  springs  and  floods! 

Ye  flowery  meads,  ye  vales  and  woods. 

Ye  limpid  floods  that  ever  murmuring  flow! 

Ye  verdant  7neads,  where  flowers  eternal  blow! 

Ye  shudy  vales,  where  zephyrs  ever  play ! 

Ye  woods  where  little  warblers  tune  their  lay.^ 

Or  Shenstone's  description  of  the  place  of  his  birth: 
Romantic  scenes  of  pendent  hills 
And  verdant  vales,  and  jailing  rills 
And  mossy  banks,  the  fields  adorn. 
Where  Damon,  simple  swain,  was  bom.'* 

Or  Lyttleton's  lines: 

Here  limpid  fountains  roll  through  flowery  meads. 
Here  rising  forests  lift  their  verdant  heads. ^ 

Or  Congreve's  description  of  the  scenery  along  the  Thames: 

And  soft  and  still  the  silver  surface  glides, 
The  zephyrs  fan  the  field,  the  whispering  breeze 
With  fragrant  breath  remurmurs  through  the  trees.^ 

Or  Parnell's 

High  sunny  summits,  deeply  shaded  dales, 
Thick  mossy  banks,  and  flowery  winding  vales. ^ 

Or  Prior's 

The  verdant  rising  of  the  flowery  hill. 
The  vale  enamelled  and  the  crystal  rill.^ 

Her  fate  is  whispered  by  the  ge^ttle  breeze, 
And  told  in  sighs  to  all  the  trembling  trees; 
The  trembling  trees  in  every  plain  and  wood, 
Her  fate  remurmur  to  the  silver  flood.'' 

I  Broome,  "On  the  Seat  of  War  in  Flanders." 
»  Shenstone,  "The  Progress  of  Taste,"  iii,  7. 

3  Lyttleton,  "  Eclogue  IV." 

4  Congreve,  "The  Birth  of  the  Muse."      ^  PHor,  "Solomon,"  iii,  158. 

5  Parnell,  "Health:  An  Eclogue."  7  Pope,  "Winter." 


Or  Pope's 


1 


NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  CLASSICAL  POETRY  27 

Or  Marriott's 

The  mimic  voice  repeats  the  gales, 
That  sigh  along  the  jiowery  vales; 
The  flowery  vales,  the  falling  floods, 
The  rising  rocks,  and  waving  woods, 
To  the  sighing  gales  reply 
Redoubhng  all  the  harmony.^ 

Further  quotation  is  useless.  It  is  easy  to  see  that  these 
passages  have  no  individuality.  They  might  be  transposed 
from  poet  to  poet  without  injustice  either  to  poem  or  poet. 
They  are  like  ready-made  clothing,  cut  out  by  the  quantity 
to  fit  the  average  figure,  and  never  having  any  niceness  or  per- 
fection of  fit  for  any  individual  form.  They  are  not  specific. 
They  have  no  local  color.  They  are,  furthermore,  absolutely 
superficial.  There  is  no  hint  of  anything  deeper  than  the 
conventional  external  details  mentioned. 

Throughout  the  classical  age  the  most  genuine  interest  in 
Nature  had  to  do  with  parks  and  gardens.  The  formal 
garden,  however,  which  held  its  own  in  England  till  early  in 
the  eighteenth  century,  makes  but  a  small  figure  in  the  poetry 
of  the  period.  Its  aflSnities  were  rather  with  prose.  In 
later  poetry  we  find  many  references  to  the  classical  garden, 
but  they  are  of  the  nature  of  a  scornful  retrospect,  and  they 
belong  to  the  new  spirit.  The  subject  of  gardening  will  be 
presented  in  a  separate  section. 

In  the  study  of  the  evolution  of  the  love  of  Nature  from 
Waller  to  Wordsworth  we  may  perhaps  mark  out  three 
stages  in  the  attitude  toward  the  external  world.  The  last 
of  these  stages  is  the  one  based  on  the  cosmic  sense,  or  the 
recognition  of  the  essential  unity  between  man  and  Nature. 
Of  this  Wordsworth  stands  as  the  first  adequate  representa- 
tive. The  second  stage  is  marked  by  the  recognition  of  the 
world  about  us  as  beautiful  and  worthy  of  close  study,  but 

I  Marriott,  "Rinaldo  and  Armida." 


^/ 


3 


28  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

this  study  is  detailed  and  external  rather  than  penetrating 
and  suggestive.  Very  much  of  the  work  of  the  transition 
period  is  of  this  sort.  In  the  first  stage  Nature  is  counted  of 
value  chiefly  as  a  storehouse  of  similitudes  illustrative  of 
human  actions  and  passions.  This  first  stage  represents  the 
use  of  Nature  most  characteristic  of  the  classical  poetry. 

A  study  of  the  abundant  similitudes  of  this  period  indi- 
cates that  they  v^-ere  drawn  from  a  very  narrow  range  of 
natural  facts.  The  lily,  the  rose,  the  lark,  the  nightingale, 
the  wren,  bees,  stars,  drops  of  dew,  the  sea  in  a  storm,  the 
oak  and  the  i\7,  leaves,  the  Milky  Way — these  are  the  most 
important  sources  of  similitudes.  The  poet  chose  his  similes 
from  facts  already  canonized  by  long  literary  service,  or 
from  the  obvious  facts  of  the  park  or  the  town  garden.  There 
is,  in  the  second  place,  little  apparent  effort  to  secure  accuracy 
or  picturesque  effect  in  the  statement  of  the  illustrative  side 
of  the  simile.  The  entire  emphasis  is  on  the  human  fact  to 
be  illustrated.  There  is,  therefore,  in  the  third  place,  a 
failure  to  perceive  subtle  or  delicately  true  analogies.  In 
most  comparisons  the  likeness  is  superficial  or  it  is  far  fetched. 
The  similes  from  Nature  were  not  the  literary  expression  of 
inner  congruities.  They  were  consciously  sought  for  as  a 
part  of  the  necessary  adornment  of  poetry.     Sheridan  says: 

I  often  try'd  in  vain  to  find, 

A  simile  for  womankind, 

A  simile  I  mean  to  fit  'em, 

In  every  circumstance  to  hit  'em. 

Through  every  beast  and  bird  I  went, 

I  ransack'd  every  element; 

And  after  peeping  through  all  nature, 

To  find  so  whimsical  a  creature, 

A  cloud  presented  to  my  view, 

And  strait  this  parable  I  drew.^ 

I  Sheridan,   "New   Simile    for   the   Ladies."    (Dr.  Johnson,  "  Life   of 
Swift.") 


NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  CLASSICAL  POETRY  29 

It  is  this  elaborate  desire  for  similitudes,  together  with  the 
small  knowledge  of  nature  that  led  not  only  to  wearisome 
iteration  of  the  same  similes  but  also  to  the  still  more  weari- 
some iteration  of  the  same  points  of  comparison.  A  rose, 
for  instance,  is  a  perennially  beautiful  source  of  compari- 
sons,^ but  in  the  eighteenth-century  poetry  it  is  used  almost 
exclusively  either  with  the  lily  in  matters  of  the  complexion, 
or  by  itself  as  representative  of  a  young  maiden.  If  she  is 
overtaken  by  misfortune  the  rose  is  easily  blasted  by  northern 
winds.  If  she  is  neglected  the  rose  withers  on  its  stalk. 
If  she  weeps  the  rose  bends  its  head  surcharged  with  dew. 
If  she  dies  young,  the  rosebud  is  blasted  before  it  is  blown. 
The  words  of  the  "Angry  Rose"  to  the  poet  gently  satirize 
this  prevalence  of  rose  similes. 

Of  all  mankind  you  should  not  flout  us; 
What  can  the  Poet  do  without  us  ? 
In  every  love-song  Roses  bloom; 
We  lend  you  color  and  perfume.^ 

The  nightingale  also  has  a  conventional  use.  He  gener- 
ally represents  the  poet  and  is  either  singing  with  a  thorn 
against  his  breast,  or  is  engaged  in  a  musical  contest  with 
other  birds,  in  which  contest  he  quickly  silences  all  com- 
petitors, or  is  himself  driven  away  by  the  clamorous  noise  of 
a  crowd  of  common  birds.  The  lark  has  his  own  established 
set  of  applications.  Dryden,  Waller,  and  Savage  represent 
the  poet  as  a  lark  singing  when  the  sun  shines,  and  Waller 
suits  the  figure  to  the  times  by  making  the  Queen  the  Sun.^ 
Tickell  called  himself  an  artless  lark.^     Cowley  professed 

I  For  an  interesting  study  of  the  rose  in  literature  from  Ausonius  to 
Waller  see  Symonds,  "Essays,"  "The  Pathos  of  the  Rose  in  Poetry,"  p.  368. 
a  Gay,  "Fables/'  i,  45. 

3  Dryden,  "Works,"  XI,  13;  Waller,  "To  the  Queen;"  Savage,  "To 
Bessy." 

4  Tickell,  "To  Mr.  Addison." 


30  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

himself  emulous  of  the  lark.'  Somerville  is  a  morning  lark.' 
Wycherley  compares  both  Virgil  and  Pope  to  larks.^  Any 
Fair  One  has  a  voice  like  a  lark,  and  to  Dyer's  delighted  ear 
the  maidens  who  spun  English  yarn  sang  like  a  whole  choir 
of  larks. "*  Not  infrequently  comparisons  are  drawn  from  the 
old  custom  of  daring  larks  by  mirrors  or  objects  that  would 
excite  terror. ^  The  wren  carried  aloft  on  the  eagle's  back 
serves  a  variety  of  poetical  purposes,  but  is  especially  apt 
when  representing  a  needy  poet  and  some  powerful  patron.^ 
Bees  are  by  far  the  most  prolific  source  of  similitude.  Their 
number,  their  activity,  their  stings,  their  honey-making  are 
all  recognized  means  of  illustration. '^ 

To  express  great  numbers  the  most  useful  similes  are 
drawn  from  stars,  pearly  drops  of  dew,  and,  most  frequently, 
leaves  in  autumn.^    An  exceedingly  popular  simile  is  that 

1  Cowley,  "The  Shortness  of  Life." 

2  Somerville,  "Field  Sports."  3  Wycherley,  "To  Mr.  Pope." 
4  Dyer,  "The  Fleece." 

sDryden,  "Works,"  IV,  202;  IX,  162. 

6  Ibid.,  I,  214;  V,  365;  Congreve,  "On  His  Taking  of  Namur;"  st.  2. 

7  See  as  illustrative  of  the  bee  similitudes:  Waller,  "Battle  of  the 
Summer  Islands,"  canto  iii,  1.  24;  Cowley,  "The  Inconstant,"  st.  6; 
Milton,  'Taradise  Lost,"  i,  768;  Dryden,  "Works,"  IX,  145,  172;  II,  463; 
Hughes,  "The  Triumph  of  Peace,"  1.  118;  Prior,  "Alma,"  iii,  171;  Pope, 
"Dunciad,"  iv,  79;  Pope,  "Temple  of  Fame;"  Gay,  "Trivia,"  ii,  555;  Con- 
greve, "Ovid's  Art  of  Love  Imitated,"  I.  200;  A.  Philips,  "To  James 
Craggs,"  1.  151;  Stepney,  "To  the  Earl  of  Carlisle,"  1.  26;  Buckingham, 
"Essay  on  Poetry,"  1.  255;  Young,  "Night  Thoughts,"  ii,  462;  vi,  516; 
Akenside,  "Odes,"  i,  i,  st.  2;  Dyer,  "Fleece,"  ii,  496;  iii,  413;  iv,  317;  Somer- 
ville, "To  Allan  Ramsay,"  1.  24;  Watts,  "Divine  Songs,"  xx,  etc. 

8  See  as  illustrative:  Cowley,  "Davideis,"  iv,  728;  "Isaiah,  ch.  34," 
St.  2;  "Plagues  of  Egypt,"  st.  9;  Milton,  "Paradise  Lost,"  i,  302;  Dryden, 
"Works,"  III,  354,  422;  Prior,  "The  Turtle  and  the  Sparrow,"  1.  206; 
King,  "Art  of  Love,"  1.  1700;  Pope,  "Essay  on  Criticism,"  ii,  109; 
"Temple  of  Fame,"  1.  430;  Young,  "Night  Thoughts,",  v,  336;  "The 
Last  Day,"  ii,  183;    Blair,  "The  Grave,"  1.  469,  etc. 


NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  CLASSICAL  POETRY  31 

of  the  oak  and  ivy,  or  the  elm  and  the  vine.'  Its  use  is  obvi- 
ous. The  rising  and  the  setting  sun  represent  various  forms 
of  prosperity  and  adversity.^  From  Waller  on,  the  Milky 
Way  typifies  virtues  so  numerous  that  they  shine  in  one 
undistinguished  blaze.^  A  large  class  of  similitudes  is 
drawn  from  water  in  some  form.  In  this  respect  Dryden 
is  typical.  It  is  surprising  to  observe  how  many  of  his 
metaphors  and  similes  are  based  on  seas,  streams,  and 
storms, 4  and  his  most  excellent  use  of  Nature  is  in  these 
similitudes,  though  after  going  over  many  of  them  one  comes 
to  feel  that  they  are  all  made  upon  much  the  same  pattern. 
After  Dryden  conventional  comparisons  based  on  floods 
and  angry  seas  are  frequent. 

1  See  as  illustrative:  Waller,  "On  Repairing  St.  Paul's,"  1.  25;  Cowley, 
"Davideis,"  ii,  58;  Milton,  "Paradise  Lost,"  v,  215;  Yalden,  "To  His  Per- 
jured Mistress,"  1.  11;  Parnell,  "The  Hermit,"  1.  41;  Young,  "Satire  IV," 
1.  i;  Dyer,  "The  Fleece,"  ii,  648;    Halifax,  "On  the  Death  of  Charles  II," 

I.  77. 

2  See  as  illustrative  Dryden's  use  of  the  sun  in  "Works,"  IV,  276; 

II,  148,  185,  215,  454,  etc. 

3  See  as  illustrative:  Waller,  "To  Amoret;"  Addison,  "An  Account 
of  the  Greatest  English  Poets;"  Spratt,  "On  the  Death  of  the  Lord  Pro- 
tector;"  Dryden,  "Works,"  XI,  132;   Cowley,  "Clad  All  in  White." 

4  As  illustrative  of  Dryden's  use  of  similitudes  drawn  from  water  note 
the  following:  Revenge  and  rage  are  sudden  floods;  joys  are  torrents  that 
overflow  all  banks;  contending  passions  are  tides  that  flow  against  currents; 
fame  is  a  swelUng  current;  anger  is  a  dammed  up  stream  that  gets  new 
force  by  opposition;  a  ruined  life,  destroyed  fortunes,  are  shipwrecks; 
love  is  like  springtides,  full  and  high,  or  like  a  flood  that  bursts  through 
all  dams,  or  Hke  a  stream  that  cannot  return  to  its  fountain,  or  like  tides 
that  do  turn;  the  disappointed  lover  dies  hke  an  unfed  stream;  the  mind 
of  a  capricious  tyrant  is  like  a  vast  sea  open  to  every  wind  that  blows;  the 
army  of  the  enemy  comes  like  the  wind  broke  loose  upon  the  main;  an 
obdurate  foe  is  as  deaf  to  supplication  as  seas  and  wind  to  sinking  mariners; 
an  open  mind  is  a  crystal  brook;  grief  undermines  the  soul  as  banks  are 
sapped  away  by  streams;  the  voice  of  a  mob  is  like  winds  that  roar  in  pur- 
suit of  flying  waves;  unspeakable  anger  is  like  water  choking  up  the  narrow 
vent  of  the  vessel  from  which  it  is  poured;  and  so  on  through  a  long  list. 


32  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

The  customary  form  of  the  river  simile  of  this  period  is 
the  comparison  of  some  man's  character,  or  actions,  or 
literary  style  to  some  historic  rivers  with  marked  features. 
Prior  uses  the  rapid  Volga  to  represent  the  impetuous 
"young  Muscovite,"  while  he  compares  his  own  king  to  the 
gentle  Thames;'  and  he  compares  the  Romans  to  the  Tyber.^ 
Pope  scornfully  likens  Curll  to  the  Uridanus.^  Cowley  com- 
pares Jonathan  to  the  fair  Jordan. ^  Halifax  compares  the 
reign  of  Charles  II  to  the  Thames.^  Armstrong  wishes  his 
own  style  to  combine  the  qualities  of  the  Tweed  and  the 
Severn.^  Hughes  likened  his  Muse  to  the  wanton  Thames.' 
Roscommon  thought  a  dull  style  was  like  the  passive  Soane.^ 
Somerville  compared  Allan  Ramsay's  poetry  to  Avona's 
silver  tide.^  Thomson  said  that  De  La  Cour's  numbers  went 
gliding  along  in  "trickling  cadence"  and  were  like  the  flow 
of  the  Euphrates. '°  Chief  among  similes  of  this  sort  is 
Denham's  well-known  apostrophe  to  the  Thames.''     TJiere 

1  Prior,  "Carmen  Seculare,"  st.  22.  3  Pope,  "Dunciad,"  ii,  182. 

2  Ibid.,  St.  4.  4  Cowley,  "Davideis,"  ii,  20. 
s  Halifax,  "On  the  Death  of  Charles  II,"  1.  125. 

6  Armstrong,"  Benevolence,"  1.  152. 

7  Hughes,  "Greenwich  Park." 

8  Roscommon,  "Essay  on  Translated  Verse,"  1.  316. 

9  Somerville,  "An  Epistle  to  Allan  Ramsay,"  1.  5. 

10  Thomson..  "To  De  La  Cour." 

11  Denham,  "Cooper's  Hill."     The  Hnes  are, 

O  could  I  flow  like  thee,  and  make  thy  stream 
My  great  example,  as  it  is  my  theme! 
Though  deep,  yet  clear;  though  gentle,  yet  not  dull: 
Strong  without  rage,  without  o'erflowing  full  I 

Pope's  lines  ("Dunciad,"  iii,  169),  beginning, 

Flow,  Welsted,  flow!  like  thine  inspirer.  Beer, 
Tho'  stale,  not  ripe;  tho'  thin,  yet  never  clear, 


Heady,  not  strong;  o'erflowing,  tho'  not  full. 


NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  CLASSICAL  POETRY  33 

is  also  frequent  use  of  rivers  in  a  more  general  way,  as  when 
Parnell  compares  the  strains  of  the  Psalmist  to  a  rolling 
river,'  and  Stanhope  compares  Pope's  style  to  a  gliding 
river, ^  and  Addison  compares  Milton's  poems  to  a  clean 
current  showing  an  odious  bottom,3,^and  Dryden  compares 
Sir  Robert  Howard's  style  to  a  might/  river.^  The  use  of  a 
river  as  a  simile  for  life  is  not  infrequent.  For  various  pur- 
poses the  Nile  was  often  used.  Its  annual  overflow  and  its 
unknown  fountain-head  are  the  chief  characteristics  drawn 
upon.  The  river  similes  seem  as  a  whole  to  be  more  effec- 
tively worked  out  and  more  gracefully  managed  than  most 
of  the  other  similes  of  the  period,  although  they  have  in  no 
case  the  beauty  and  profound  symbolism  characteristic  of 
the  river  similes  of  Wordsworth,  Matthew  Arnold,  and 
Lowell. 

are  a  parody  rather  than  an  imitation.     The  same  cannot  be  said  of  the 

line  ("Temple  of  Fame,"  1.  374), 

So  soft,  though  high,  so  loud,  and  yet  so  clear. 

Prior  has  these  lines  ("Carmen  Seculare,"  st.  22)- 

But  her  own  king  she  likens  to  the  Thames, 
With  gentle  course  devolving  fruitful  streams; 
Serene  yet  strong,  majestic  yet  sedate, 
Swift  without  violence,  without  terror  great. 

Fr.  Knapp  addresses  the  sea  on  the  Irish  coast  in  the  following  lines  ("To 
Mr.  Pope"): 

Let  me  ne'er  flow  like  thee !  nor  make  thy  stream 
My  sad  example,  or  my  wretched  theme. 

Mallet  has  the  lines  (cf.  "Verbal  Criticism,"  1.  228): 

Great  without  swelling,  without  meanness  plain; 
Serious,  not  silly;  sportive,  but  not  vain; 
On  trifles  slight,  on  things  of  use  profound, 
In  quoting  sober,  and  in  judging  sound. 

In  Dyer  we  have  a  fainter  echo  ("The  Country  Walk,"  1.  69): 

Methinks  her  lays  I  hear. 
So  smooth!  so  sweet!  so  deep  I  so  clear! 

1  Parnell,  "David,"  1.  49. 

2  Stanhope,  "Progress  of  Dullness." 

3  Addison,  "An  Account  of  the  Greatest  English  Poets." 

4  Dryden,  "Works,"  XI,  7. 


34  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

Another  common  form  of  comparison  is  that  in  which  the 

seasons  or  the  various  aspects  of  the  day  are  used  to  describe 

some  person.     One  of  the  happiest  examples  is  from  Marvell. 

She  summ'd  her  life  up  ev'ry  day, 
Modest  as  mom,  as  midday  bright, 
Gentle  as  ev'ning,  calm  as  night.  ^ 

Later  similes  are  less  graceful,  but  they  usually  have  the  anti- 
thetical form  of  expression.'' 

Fairly  numerous  similes  are  drawn  from  trees.  Dryden 
gives  typical  examples,  as, 

And  lofty  cedars  as  far  upward  shoot 

As  to  the  nether  heavens  they  drive  their  root.^ 

This  equal  spread  of  roots  and  branches,  the  hea\7  fall  of  a 
great  tree,  and  the  superior  height  of  some  tall  pine  or  cedar, 
are  the  chief  sources  of  similitudes. 

The  abundant  commonplaces,  the  fluent  ineptitudes,  of 
these  eighteenth-century  similes  did  not  escape  satire  in  their 
own  day.  Now  and  then  a  critic  looked  with  scorn  upon  the 
ingenious  and  exhausting  attempts  of  the  poet  lovers  to  devise 
comparisons  adequately  expressive  of  the  beauty,  the  fascina- 
tion, the  cruelty,  the  coldness,  the  inconstancy,  of  their 
Cynthias  of  the  minute.  Butler  thus  notes  the  tendency  of 
poor  and  unmeaning  metaphors  to  advance  in  a  mob  when 
female  charms  were  to  be  depicted: 

In  praising  Chloris,  moons,  and  stars,  and  skies. 

Are  quickly  made  to  match  her  face  and  eyes — 

And  gold  and  rubies,  with  as  little  care, 

To  fit  the  colour  of  her  lips  and  hair; 

And,  mixing  suns,  and  flowers,  and  pearl,  and  stones, 

Make  them  serve  all  complexions  at  once,'* 

'  Marvell,  "An  Epitaph  upon ." 

2  Cf.  Cowley,  "Davideis,"  iii,  553,  and  Pope,  "Spring,"  1.  81. 

3  Dryden,  "Works,"  XI,  131;  III,  390;  II,  451. 

4  Butler,  "Satire  to  a  Bad  Poet." 


NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  CLASSICAL  POETRY  35 

This  easy  method  of  praising  a  mistress  is  also  humorously 
described  by  Ambrose  Philips: 

To  blooming  Phyllis  I  a  song  compose, 
And,  for  a  rhyme,  compare  her  to  the  Rose; 
Then,  while  my  Fancy  works,  I  write  down  Mom, 
To  paint  the  blush  that  does  her  cheek  adorn. 
And,  when  the  whiteness  of  her  skin  I  show, 
With  extasy  bethink  myself  of  Snow. 
Thus,  without  pains,  I  tinkle  in  the  close, 
And  sweeten  into  Verse  insipid  Prose. ^ 

And  Swift  in  his  "Apollo's  Edict,"  1720,  specifically  prohibits 
the  use  of  some  of  the  more  wearisomely  frequent  similitudes. 
Some  of  the  laws  he  imposes  on  the  poets  of  his  realm  are : 

No  simile  shall  be  begun 
With  rising  or  with  setting  sun, 

No  son  of  mine  shall  e'er  dare  say, 
Aurora  usher ed-in  the  duy, 
Or  even  name  the  Milky-Way . 

The  bird  of  Jove  shall  toil  no  more 
To  teach  that  humble  wren  to  soar. 

Nor  let  my  votaries  show  their  skill 
By  aping  Knes  from  Cooper's  Hill; 
For  know,  I  can  not  bear  to  hear 
The  mimicry  of  ''deep,  yet  clear." 

In  general  we  may  say  of  the  similitudes  of  this  period 
that  in  no  other  literary  form  was  Nature  so  widely  used,  and 
in  no  other  form  with  so  little  beauty  and  spirit;  that  they 
were  based  on  an  insufficient  and  inexact  knowledge  of 
Nature;  and  that  they  were  used  without  any  sympathetic 
sense  of  inner  fitness. 

A  further  characteristic  of  the  use  of  Nature  in  the  classical 

»  Ambrose  Philips,  "Epistle  to  a  Friend." 


36  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

period  is  a  personification  of  natural  objects  with  the  ulterior 
purpose  of  making  them  conscious  of  the  charms  or  emotions 
of  some  person.  When  such  personification  arises  out  of  an 
intimate  identification  of  man  with  Nature,  a  subjective 
recognition  of  the  unity  of  all  existence,  or  when  it  is  the 
outgrowth  of  a  supreme  passion  compelling  the  phenomena 
of  Nature  into  apparent  sympathy  with  its  own  joy  or  grief, 
the  expression  is  sure  to  bear  the  mark  of  inner  conviction  or 
strong  emotion.  But  when  the  personification  is  manifestly 
a  laborious  artistic  device,  when  it  is  based  on  neither  belief 
nor  passion,  it  must  be  considered  the  mark  of  an  age  slightly 
touched  by  real  feeling  for  nature.  And  such,  in  general, 
were  the  personifications  so  freely  used  in  the  English  classical 
poetry.  There  is  an  artificiality,  even  a  grotesqueness, 
about  some  of  them  that  forbids  even  temporary  poetic 
credence  on  the  part  of  the  reader.  A  good  example  is  in 
Waller's  "At  Pens-hurst,"  where  the  susceptible  deer  and 
beeches  and  clouds  mourn  with  Waller  over  the  cruelty  of  his 
stony-hearted  Sacharissa.'  At  the  death  of  any  illustrious 
man  or  fair  lady  all  Nature  was  convulsed  with  grief.  When 
Caelestia  died  the  rivulets  were  flooded  by  the  tears  of  the 
water-gods,  the  brows  of  the  hills  were  furrowed  by  new 
streams,  the  heavens  wept,  sudden  damps  overspread  the 
plains,  the  lily  hung  its  head,  and  birds  drooped  their  wings. 
When  Amaryllis  had  informed  Nature  of  the  death  of  Amyntas 
all  creation  "began  to  roar  and  howl  with  horrid  yell."^ 
When  Thomas  Gunston  died  just  before  he  had  finished  his 
seat  at  Newington,  Watts  declared  that  the  curling  vines 
would  in  grief  untwine  their  amorous  arms,  the  stately  elms 
would  drop  leaves  for  tears,  and  that  even  the  unfinished  gates 

1  Congreve,  "The  Mourning  Muse  of  Alexis,"  1.  89;   cf.  also  Fenton, 
"Florelia." 

2  Congreve,  "The  Tears  of  Amar>'llis  for  Amyntas,"  1.  143. 


NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  CLASSICAL  POETRY  37 

and  buildings  would  weep.'  In  love  poetry  Nature  is  fre- 
quently represented  as  abashed  and  discomfited  before  the 
superior  charms  of  some  fair  nymph.  Aurora  blushes  when 
she  sees  cheeks  more  beauteous  than  her  own.  Lilies  wax 
pale  with  emy  at  a  maiden's  fairness.^  When  bright 
Ophelia  comes  lilies  droop  and  roses  die  before  their  lofty 
rival. ^  So  the  sun,  when  he  sees  the  beautiful  ladies  in 
Hyde  Park, 

Sets  in  blushes  and  conveys  his  fires 
To  distant  lands."* 

And  when  that  modest  luminary  is  aware  of  the  presence  of 
the  fair  Maria  he 

Seems  to  descend  with  greater  care; 

And,  lest  she  see  him  go  to  bed, 

In  blushing  clouds  conceales  his  head.s 

Nature  is  thus  constantly  compelled  into  admiring  submission 
to  some  Delia  or  Phyllis  or  Chloris.  Even  further  than  this  do 
the  poets  go;  they  make  all  the  beauty  of  Nature  a  direct  out- 
come of  the  lady's  charms.  In  the  gardens  at  Pens-hurst  the 
peace  and  glory  of  the  alleys  was  given  by  Dorothea's  more 
than  human  grace.  ^  No  spot  could  resist  the  civilizing  effect 
of  her  beauty.  The  most  charming  example  of  this  sort  of 
fanciful  exaggeration  is  in  Marvell's  verses  on  Maria  and  the 
Nunappleton  gardens. 

1  Watts,  "A  Funeral  Poem  on  Thomas  Gunston,"  11.  252,  308.     Com- 
pare the  indifference  of  Nature  to  the  death  of  Lucy  whose  body  is 

Rolled  round  in  earth's  diurnal  course 
With  rocks,  and  stones  and  trees. — Wordsworth,  "Lucy." 

2  Cowley,  "Constantia  and  Philetus,"  sts.  5,  10. 

3  Shenstone,  "  Roxana."     For  an  interesting  variation  of  this  theme 
see  Cowley,  "The  Spring." 

4  Hughes,  "Cupid's  Review,"  1.  17. 

s  Marvell,  "Upon  Appleton  House,"  1.  661. 
6  Waller,  "At  Pens-hurst." 


38  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

'Tis  she,  that  to  these  gardens  gave 
That  wondrous  beauty  which  they  have; 
She  straightness  on  the  woods  bestows; 
To  her  the  meadow  sweetness  owes; 
Nothing  could  make  the  river  be 
So  cr>'stal  pure,  but  only  she, 
She  yet  more  pure,  and  straight,  and  fair 
Than  gardens,  woods,  meads,  rivers,  are.^ 

If  later  examples  of  the  subordination  of  Nature  to  man 

were  so  graceful  and  quaintly  tender  as  this  poem  of  Marvell's 

we  might  simply  regard  them  as  permissible  instances  of 

pathetic  fallacy.     But  even  taken  at  its  best  we  cannot  fail  to 

see  that  this  conception  of  Nature  in  its  relation  to  man  is 

quite  unlike  the  dominant  conception  in  the  romantic  school. 

In  the  onecasej^e  ha.Y^he  subordination  of  Nature;  in  the 

otheiLjSil^liD'istry-Pf  Nature.     A  significant  comparison 

might  be  made  between  Marvell's  Maria,  and  Wordsworth's 

Lucy.^     The  one  is  the  typical  fair  maiden  ruling  over  her 

flower  world  and  inspiring  to  beautiful  life  all  the  gentle 

Nature  forms  about  her.     The  other  is  "Nature's  lady." 

Her  whole  being   is  molded   by  her   susceptibility   to   the 

deeper  influences  of  Nature  untouched  by  art.    Maria  gives  to 

the  external  world  the  charm  that  it  has.     Lucy  is  graced  by 

the  spirit  of  nature  with  all  lovely  qualities.     But  Marvell's 

poem  is  really  no  fair  criterion  of  the  use  of  Nature  in  the 

classical  love  and  elegiac  poetry,  for  in  most  of  that  poetry 

the  emotion,  the  passion,  that  would  justify  extravagant  or 

even  impossible  conceptions  is  conspicuously  absent.     The 

extravagance  of  speech  stood  as  the  sign  of  an  intensity  of 

feeling  that  did  not  exist.     The  poet  was  not  swept  away  by 

overwhelming    passion.     He    worked    out    his    verses    with 

conscious  deliberation.     A  lady-love  was  one  of  the  necessary 

'  Marvell,  "Upon  Appleton  House,"  1.  689. 
2  Wordsworth,  "Lucy." 


NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  CLASSICAL  POETRY  39 

poetical  stage  properties,  so  the  poet  cast  about  him  for  a 
Phylhs  or  an  Amoret,  and  then  cast  about  him  for  something 
to  say  to  her.  Such  lines  as  Waller's  on  Dorothea,  who  is  so 
much  admired  by  the  plants  that 

If  she  sit  down,  with  tops  all  tow'rds  her  bow'd, 
They  round  about  her  into  arbours  crowd: 
Or  if  she  walks,  in  even  ranks  they  stand, 
Like  some  well-marshal'd  and  obsequious  band,* 

are  at  once  felt  to  be  merely  cold,  tasteless  hyperbole.  The 
lines  do  not  win  a  second's  suspension  of  disbelief.  Modes  of 
speech,  a  conception  of  Nature,  such  that  high-wrought  emo- 
tion might  justify  it,  or  that  might  be  natural  and  inevitable 
when  the  poet's  thought  was  ruled  by  a  living  mythology, 
became  mere  frigid  conventionalities  when  there  was  no 
passion,  and  when  the  spirits  of  stream  and  wood  no  longer 
won  even  poetic  faith. 

To  speak  of  the  poetic  diction  of  the  classical  poetry  has 
become  a  commonplace  of  criticism.  By  universal  consent 
certain  words  and  phrases  seem  to  have  been  stamped  as 
reputable,  national,  and  present,  and  to  have  formed  the 
authorized  storehouse  of  poetical  supplies.  If  one  writer  hit 
out  a  good  word  or  phrase,  it  became  common  property  like 
air  or  sunshine,  and  other  writers  did  not  waste  their  time 
beating  the  bush  for  a  different  form  of  words.  Frequently 
words  in  the  accepted  diction  may  be  traced  to  some  Latin 
author,  but  the  point  to  be  noted  here  is  that,  whatever  the 
origin  of  the  word,  its  use  is  incessant.  The  fatal  grip  with 
which  certain  words  clung  to  the  poetical  mind  in  the  classical 
period  receives  interesting  exemplification  from  a  comparison 
of  Chapman's  and  Pope's  translations  of  Homer.  It  will  be 
observed  that  in  frequent  passages  Pope  uses  the  words 
"purple,"  ''deck,"  "adorn,"  and  "paint,"  chief  words  in  the 

I  Waller,  "At  Pens-hurst." 


40         NATURE  IX  ENGLISH  POETRY 

classical  poetic  diction.  But  in  the  corresponding  passages 
in  Chapman  some  other  form  of  words  is  used.  And  in  most 
cases  Pope's  use  of  these  terms  has  no  warrant  in  the  original. 
Likewise,  in  Dryden's  translation  of  Virgil  the  stock  dic- 
tion is  used  when  there  is  no  idea  or  picture  in  the  Latin  to  call 
for  it  and  when  the  use  of  the  stock  phraseology  results  in 
distinct  loss  of  force  or  beauty.  Compare,  for  instance, 
Virgil's  vivid  ''flavescet"  and  Dryden's  tame  "the  fields 
adorned'"  used  with  reference  to  harvests  of  ripened  grain. 
Or  compare  ''novis  rubeant  quam  prata  coloribus"  and 
"painted  meads;"^  "noctem  ducentibus  astris,"  and  ''stars 
adorn  the  skies. "^  We  find  the  same  spirit  illustrated  in 
Dryden's  modernization  of  Chaucer.  The  fresh,  spontaneous 
simplicity  of  a  poet  like  Chaucer  serves  exceptionally  well 
to  show  the  comparatively  insipid  and  feeble  treatment  of 
Nature  on  the  part  of  those  poets  who  were  content- to  take 
their  expressions,  as  well  as  their  facts,  at  second  hand.  ''The 
briddes"  becomes  "the  painted  birds;"  "a  goldfinch"  is  am- 
plified into  a  "goldfinch  with  gaudy  pride  of  painted  plumes." 
"At  the  sun  upriste"  becomes 

Aurora  had  but  newly  chased  the  night 

And  purpled  o'er  the  sky  with  blushing  light."* 

The  same  point  is  well  exemplified  in  some  of  the  changes 
made  by  Percy  in  the  Ballads.     For  instance, 

As  itt  befell  in  Midsummer  time 

When  burds  singe  sweetlye  on  every  tree 

was  modernized  to, 

I  Virgil,  "Eclogues,"  iv,  28;  Dryden,  "Pastoral,"  iv,  1.  ^^. 
3  Virgil,  "Georgics,"  iv,  306;  Dr>'den,  "Georgics,"  iv,  433. 

3  Virgil,  "Georgics,"  iii,  156;  Dryden,  "Georgics,"  iii,  250. 

4  Dryden,  "Works,"  XII,  5;   XI,  221. 


NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  CLASSICAL  POETRY  41 

When  Flora  with  her  fragrant  flowers 
Bedeckt  the  earth  so  trim  and  gaye, 

And  Neptune  with  his  daintye  showers 
Came  to  present  the  monthe  of  ^laye.^ 

Full  illustration  would  require  much  more  space  than  is 
here  at  command,  but  the  point  to  be  made  is  clear,  namely, 
that  even  when  the  poet  had  his  natural  facts  furnished  for 
him,  he  instinctively  put  them  into  the  molds  of  an  accepted 
poetic  diction. 

By  all  odds  the  most  frequent  and  significant  words  in 
this  stock  poetic  diction,  so  far  as  it  has  to  do  with  the  presen- 
tation of  nature,  are  indicative  of  dress  or  adornment  in  some 
form.  The  word  "paint"  is  everywhere.  Snakes  and  lizards 
and  birds;  morning  and  evening;  gardens,  meadows,  and 
fields;  prospects,  scenes,  and  landscapes;  hills  and  valleys; 
clouds  and  skies;  sunbeams  and  rainbows;  rivers  and  waves; 
and  flowers  from  tulips  to  white  lilies — nothing  escapes.  It 
is  little  wonder  that  Somerville  called  God  "the  Almighty 
Painter."^  The  word  "paint"  is  really  an  Elizabethan  sur- 
vival, and  as  such  came  into  the  possession  of  Cowley,  whose 
use  of  it  is  absolutely  vicious.  A  rainbov/  is  "painted 
tears."  The  wings  of  birds  are  "painted  oars."  David 
after  the  fight  with  the  giant  is  "painted  gay  with  blood," 
and  the  blood  of  the  Egyptians  lost  in  the  Red  Sea  "new 
paints  the  waters'  name."^  ^' Gaudy"  is  another  word  of 
frequent  occurrence.  In  general  the  meaning  was  as  now, 
"ostentatiously  fine"  as  we  see  in  Shakspere's  phrase, 
"rich  but  not  gaudy,"  and  in  Dryden's  "gaudy  pride  of 
painted  plumes."     In  that  sense  it  was  fitly  applied  to  pea- 

1  Percy,  "Reliques,"  II,  190. 

2  Somerville,  "To  Anne  Coventry,"  1,  25. 

3  Cowley,  "The  Shortness  of  Life,"  st.  11;  "The  Muse;"  "Davideis," 
ii,  29;  "The  Plagues  of  Egypt,"  st.  17. 


42  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

cocks,  and  perhaps  even  to  rainbows,  but  such  phrases  as 
"a  gaudy  fly,'"  the  "gaudy  plumage"-*  of  falcons;  the 
"gaudy  axles  of  the  fixed  stars,"''  the  "gaudy  month"  of 
May,-*  the  "gaudy  opening  dawn,"^  the  "gaudy  milky  soil"^ 
and  the  "gaudy  Tagus"'  seem  to  have  no  exact  meaning. 
"  Bright"  might  often  serve  as  a  synonym,  but  not  in  the  appli- 
cation of  the  word  to  flies  and  falcons.  The  word  "adorn" 
is  likewise  eminently  serviceable.  Fruit  adorns  the  trees, 
fleecy  flocks  adorn  the  hills,  flowers  adorn  the  green,  rainbows 
adorn  clouds,  blades  of  grass  adorn  fields,  vegetables  adorn 
gardens,  Phoebus  adorns  the  west  and  is  himself  adorned  with 
all  his  light,  and  Emma's  eyes  adorn  the  fields  she  looks  on. 
"Deck"  is  another  favorite.  Flora's  rich  gifts  deck  the 
field,  herbs  deck  the  spring,  and  corals  deck  the  deep.  Vales, 
meadows,  fields,  mountains,  rivers,  shores,  plains,  paths,  turf, 
gardens — all  are  profusely  "damasked"  or  "enameird"or 
"embroidered."  The  wings  of  butterflies  and  linnets  are 
"gilded."  The  rising  sun  gilds  the  morn;  the  gaudy  bow 
gilds  the  sky;  gaudy  light  gilds  the  heavens;  lightning  gilds 
the  storm;  meteors  and  stars  gild  the  night;  and  a  duchess 
gilds  the  rural  sphere  when  she  condescends  to  visit  the 
country. 

These  milliner-like  words  were  not,  however,  the  only 
ones  that  the  poet  could  claim  as  lawful  heritage.  He  knew, 
for  instance,  that  he  could  always  call  honey  "a  dewy 
harvest,"  or  "balmy  dew,"  or  "ambrosial  spoils,"  and  have 

I  Blackmore   "Creation,"  vi,  170;   v,  loi;   Yalden,  "The  Insect." 

»  Somerville,  "Field  Sports,"  I.  161. 

3  Pitt,  "Earl  Stanhope;"   "Ps.  144-" 

4Tickell,  "Kensington  Garden;"    Somerville,  "Rural  Games,"  i,  94. 

5  Dyer,  "Grongar  Hill,"  1.  65. 

6Dryden,  "Works,"  VI,  228. 

7  Cowley,  "  Ode  2." 


<^ —     — -^  ir  ^ 

OF   THE 

UNIVERSITY 

^ra[^]^J^,>^ppLlSH  CLASSICAL  POETRY  43 

his  hearers  know  what  he  meant.  His  birds,  though  almost 
necessarily  a  "choir,"  could  be  "feathered"  or  "tuneful"  or 
"plumy"  or  "warbling"  according  to  his  taste.  His  fish 
were  easily  labeled  as  "finny,"  "scaly,"  or  'Svatery." 

Breezes  were  "whispering,"  "balmy,"  "ambrosial;" 
zephyrs  were  "gentle,"  ''soft,"  and  "bland;"  gales  were 
"odoriferous,"  "wanton,"  "Elysian;"  and  no  other  kinds 
of  winds  blew  except  in  storm  similes.  "Vernal"  and 
"verdant"  come  in  at  every  turn.  From  Waller  on,  the 
epithet  "watery"  seems  eminently  satisfactory  to  the  poetic 
mind.  Dryden  may  be  taken  as  illustrative.  To  him  the 
ocean  is  a  "watery  desert,"  a  "watery  deep,"  a  "watery 
plain,"  a  "watery  way,"  a  "watery  reign."  The  shore  is  a 
"watery  brink,"  or  a  "watery  strand."  Fish  are  a  "watery 
line"  or  a  "watery  race."  Sea-birds  are  "watery  fowl." 
The  launching  of  ships  is  a  "watery  war."  Streams  are 
"watery  floods."  Waves  are  "watery  ranks."'  The  word 
occurs  with  wearisome  iteration  in  succeeding  poets.  It  is 
applied  not  only  to  the  sea  but  to  rivers,  clouds,  and  rain, 
to  glades,  meads,  and  flowers,  to  landscapes,  to  mists,  to 
the  sky,  to  the  sun,  and  to  the  rainbow.  The  set  phrases 
for  the  sky  are  such  as  "azure  sky,"  "heaven's  azure," 
"concave  azure,"  "azure  vault,"  "azure  waste,"  "blue sky," 
"blue  arch,"  "blue  expanse,"  "blue  vault,"  "blue  vacant," 
"blue  serene,"  "aerial  concave,"  "aetherial  vault,"  "aerial 
vault,"  "vaulted  sky,"  "vaulted  azure,"  with  such  other 
changes  as  may  be  rung  on  these  words.  The  chief  words 
applied  to  stars,  "spangle"  and  "twinkle,"  have  been 
already    noted.     The    usual    adjectives    for    streams    and 

I  Many  of  these  words  occur  in  the  translations  by  Dryden  but  in 
rwne  of  the  instances  quoted  is  there  any  justification  in  the  Latin  phrase 
for  the  adjective  "watery."  For  instance,  "watery  waiy "  =sp2cmantibiis 
undis;  "watery  reign"  =a/^Mm;  "watery  deep "  = />e/ago,  and  so  on  through 
the  list. 


44         NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

brooks  are  pleasant,  easy  words  like  "liquid,"  "lucid," 
"limpid,"  "purling,"  "murmuring,"  and  "bubbling." 
"Rural,"  "rustic,"  and  "sylvan"  are  epithets  applied  to 
anything  belonging  to  the  country,  whether  to  the  hours 
spent  there,  the  songs  of  the  birds,  or  the  charming  country- 
maidens  and  their  loves,  their  bowers,  their  bliss,  their  toil. 
"Flowery"  is  so  constantly  used  as  descriptive  of  brooks, 
borders,  banks,  vales,  hills,  paths,  plains,  and  meads,  that  it 
really  has  not  much  more  meaning  than  the  definite  article 
prefixed  to  a  noun.  "Vocal"  is  applied  to  vales,  shades, 
hills,  shores,  mountains,  grots,  and  woodlands.  "Pendent" 
and  "  hanging"  belong  to  cliffs,  precipices,  mountains,  shades, 
and  woods.  "Headlong"  and  "umbrageous"  are  favorite 
adjectives  for  groves  or  shades  of  any  sort.  "  Mossy  "  applies 
to  grottos,  fountains,  streams,  caves,  turf,  banks,  and  so  on. 
"Gray"  is  the  usual  descriptive  word  for  twilight,  and 
"brown"  for  night.     "Lawns"  are  usually  "dewy." 

Some  words  in  this  poetic  diction  are  no  longer  much  used. 
"Breathing,"  is  an  example.  It  usually  referred  to  the  air  in 
gentle  motion,  as  "breathing  gales,"  but  we  also  find  "breath- 
ing earth,"  referring  to  mists,  and  "breathing  sweets,"  and 
"  breathing  flowers"  or  "breathing  roses,"  where  the  reference 
is  to  perfume.  "Maze"  and  "mazy"  are  also  much  used. 
The  Thames  and  other  streams  lead  along  "mazy  trains." 
The  track  of  the  hare  is  an  "airy  maze."  Paths  meet  in 
narrow  mazes  and  stars  unite  in  a  mazy,  complicated  dance. 
Milton's  stream  flows  with  "  mazy  error."  This  word  "  error" 
is  frequently  used  in  its  exact  derived  meaning.  In  another 
place  Milton  speaks  of  streams  that  wander  with  "serpent 
error."*  Blair  has  a  stream  that  slides  along  in  "grateful 
errors."^    In  Falconer  the  light  strays  through  the  forest  with 

•  Milton,  "  Paradise  Lost,"  iv,  239;   vii,  302. 
>  Blair,  "The  Grave." 


NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  CLASSICAL  POETRY  45 

''gay  romantic  error." ^  In  Gay  the  fly  floats  about  with 
"wanton  errors.'"^  Dyer  winds  along  a  mazy  path  with 
"error  sweet."^  Armstrong's  "error"  leads  him  through 
endless  labyrinths.'*  Addison's  waves  roll  in  "restless 
errors, "5  and  Thomson  treads  the  "maze  of  autumn  with 
cheerful  error."^  "Amusive"  is  a  word  applied  by  Pitt  to 
the  ocean,  and  by  Mallet  to  clouds;  Shenstone  says  that 
country  joys  "amuse  securely."^  It  seems  to  be  half  apolo- 
getic in  tone  in  some  cases;  in  others  it  merely  means  pleasing. 
Thomson  used  the  word  as  verb  or  adjective  several  times. ^ 
We  also  find  it  in  Parnell.^  "Lawn"  is  used  in  the  sense 
of  an  open  glade  in  the  woods.  Even  so  late  as  Wordsworth 
this  meaning  persists. '°  One  unpleasant  but  not  uncommon 
word  is  "  sweat. ' '  It  may  be  a  survival  from  the  metaphysical 
conceits,  for  we  find  in  Dr.  Donne  a  reference  to  the  "  sweet 
sweat  of  roses,"  and  Cowley  has  flowery  Hermon  "sweat" 
beneath  the  dews  of  night.  Dryden  has  flowers  sweat  at 
night."     Fenton's  flowers 

all  pale  and  blighted  lie, 
And  in  cold  sweats  of  sickly  mildew  die." 

1  Falconer,  "The  Shipwreck,"  i,  359. 

2  Gay,  "Rural  Sports,"  i,  226. 

3  Dyer,  "Ruins  of  Rome,"  1.  86. 

4  Armstrong,  "Art  of  Preserving  Health,"  ii,  7. 
s  Addison,  "To  the  King,"  1.  115. 

6  Thomson,  "Autumn,"  1.  626;  cf.  also  "Summer,"  1.  1574;  "Autumn," 
I.  628. 

7  Pitt,  "Ode  to  John  Pitt,"  st.  5;    Mallet,  "Amyntor  and  Theodora," 
i,  153;  Shenstone,  "To  a  Lady;"   "Rural  Elegance,"  st.  17. 

8  See  Thomson,  "Spring,"  11.  215,  767;  "Summer,"  1.  1547. 

9  Parnell,  "Hymn  to  Contentment." 

10  Wordsworth,  "Three  Years  She  Grew." 
'I  Dryden,  "Works,"  II,  360;  IX,  104. 

"  Fenton,  "Florelio,"  1.  43. 


46         NATURE  IX  ENGLISH  POETRY 

Even  Gray  talks  about  the  ''sickly  dews'"  of  night,  and 
Thomson  has  caverns  ''  sweat. "^  Garth,  as  a  physician,  may 
possibly  be  excused  for  having  the  ''sickening  flowers"  drink 
up  the  silver  dew,  and  the  grass  tainted  with  "  sickly  sweats  of 
dew,"  but  when  he  has  the  fair  oak  adorned  with  "luscious 
sweats,"^  he  has  gone  into  the  realm  of  aesthetics,  and  no 
excuse  can  prevail. 

The  power  of  fashion  in  words  in  a  conventional  age  is  fur- 
ther shown  by  the  prevalence  of  adjectives  ending  in  "y." 
They  are  favorites  with  Dryden,  and  hold  their  own  steadily 
through  the  century  that  followed.  Beamy,  bloomy,  forky, 
branchy,  flamy,  purply,  steepy,  spumy,  surgy,  foamy,  blady, 
dampy,  chinky,  sweepy,  sheltry,  moony,  paly,  tusky,  heapy, 
miny,  saggy,  and  many  more,  occur  w^here  at  present  there 
would  be  no  ending  or  the  ending  "-ing." 

The  stock  poetic  diction  may  serve  also  to  illustrate  the 
indebtedness  of  the  English  classical  poets  to  their  Latin 
masters  in  the  matter  of  phraseology.  Compare,  for  instance, 
the  use  of  the  word  "cavus"  in  its  application  to  "montes," 
"cavernae,"  "trunci,"  "saxa,"  ''umbra,"  and  "flumina,"  and 
the  English  word,  "  hollow,"  as  applied  to  caves,  rocks,  moun- 
^  tains,  shores,  valleys,  and  even  to  the  dark.  Or  compare  the 
Latin  use  of  "horridus,"  meaning  rough,  rugged,  wild,  with 
"horrid,"  in  its  application  to  mountains,  rocks,  and  thickets. 
"Savage  mountains"  and  "shaggy  mountains"  sound  like  an 
echo  from  Virgil's  "montes  feri"  and  "intonsi  montes."  The 
fundamental  conception  is  certainly  the  same.  Milton's 
"hairy  thickets"  and  bushes  with  "frizzled  hair"  and  Dry- 
den's  "hairy  honours  of  the  vine"  are  suggestive  of  the  Latin 
use  of  "comae"  as  a  trope  for  foliage.     The  word  "  honours," 

I  Gray,  "Progress  of  Poetry." 

a  Thomson,  "Autumn,"  1.  843. 

3  Garth,  "Dispensary,"  ii,  3,  14;  iv,  260. 


NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  CLx\SSICAL  POETRY  47 

as  applied  to  foliage  or  fruits,  is  also  of  Latin  origin.  The 
'"tristis"  or  ''dura  hiems"  of  Mrgil  finds  its  echo  in  the  general 
epithets  applied  to  winter  in  English  poetry,  "Deform'd" 
and  "inverted"  seem  to  be  mere  Latin  transcripts.  Dryden 
was  fond  of  the  word  "nodding."  He  used  it  twice  in  trans- 
lations in  places  where  some  other  word  would  more  accu- 
rately represent  the  original.'  In  its  application  to  moun- 
tains the  word  may,  perhaps,  be  traced  to  Virgil's  ''nutantem 
mundum."  Its  further  use  by  Dryden,  Pope,  Akenside,  Shen- 
stone,  and  others,  with  reference  to  forests,  rocks,  and  preci- 
pices, is  apparently  a  later  outgrowth  from  its  applica- 
tion to  mountains.  "Sylvan  Muse"  and  ''silvestris  musa;" 
"flowery  plains"  and  ''florea  rura;"  "liquid  fountains"  and 
"liquid!  fontes;"  "mossy  springs"  and  ''muscosi  fontes,"  are 
but  a  few  of  the  many  exact  parallels  between  the  English 
and  Latin  phrases  descriptive  of  scenery.  So,  too,  the  super- 
ficial conception  of  the  various  beauties  of  Nature  as  "adorn- 
ments" of  the  earth  finds  its  prototype  in  such  expressions  as 
"lucidum  caeh  decus,"  applied  to  the  moon,  or  ''pulla  ficus, 
ornat  arborem,"  or  'Sdtis  ut  arboribus  decori  est,  ut  vitibus 
uvae."  An  instructive  example  of  the  way  in  which  borrowed 
epithets  lose  their  significance  and  become  merely  conven- 
tional is  the  word  "painted"  in  its  application  to  birds.  In 
Virgil  "pictaeque  volucrae"^  meant  birds  of  many  colors,  or 
of  bright  colors.  Milton  uses  the  phrase  "painted  wings,"^ 
referring  apparently  to  brilliant  birds  in  the  Garden  of  Eden. 

1  Virgil,  "Georgics,"  i,  329,  "quo  maxuma  motu  Terra  tremit;"  Dryden, 
"Georgics,"  i,  430,  "the  mountains  nod  and  earth's  entrails  tremble."  Virgil, 
"Eclogue  6,"  "rigidas  motare  cacumina  quercus;"  Dr>'den,  "Pastoral  6," 
"nodding  forests  to  the  numbers  danced;"  cf.  Pope,  "Messiah,"  "nodding 
forests  on  the  mountain  dance,"  and  Milton,  "  Comus,"  1.  38,  "nodding 
horror  of  the  wood." 

2  Virgil,  "Georgics,"  iii,  243;    "Aeneid,"  iv,  525. 

3  Milton,  "  Paradise  Lost,"  vii,  434. 


48         NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

But  by  Pope's  time  the  word  "painted"  had  become  a  stock 
epithet  with  its  connotation  so  vaguely  widened  that  it  would 
be  difficult  to  give  its  exact  meaning.  It  was  simply  indefi- 
nitely associated  with  birds,  hence  Pope  applied  it  to  the 
brown  wings  of  a  pheasant.^  Shenstone  uses  it  of  the  wings 
of  a  fiy,^  and  Parnell  applies  it  to  the  eye  of  a  peacock,^  and 
Waller  to  the  peacock's  nest.-*  In  the  same  way  "painted," 
in  its  application  to  flowers,  might  easily  be  a  picturesque 
descriptive  adjective  for  bright  blossoms  of  any  sort,  but 
being  gradually  more  and  more  closely  associated  with 
flowers,  it  would  lose  its  first  meaning  and  come  to  be  applied 
to  white  hhes  as  well  as  tuhps.  "Purple"  is  another  bor- 
rowed word.  It  brought  with  it  its  whole  train  of  Latin 
meanings.  In  ordinary  English  speech  "purple"  had  a 
fairly  definite  reference  to  a  specific  color  composed  of  red  and 
blue,  but  in  the  English  classical  poetry  it  was  used  in  ex- 
actly the  Latin  sense.  The  fundamental  idea  of  "purpureus" 
was  color,  but  a  secondary  meaning  was  brightness;  in  its 
twofold  application  it  was  a  descriptive  epithet  applicable  to 
light,  ^  to  flowers  in  general,  to  roses,  spring,  or  morning. 
The  English  phrases,  "morning's  purple  wings,"  "the  purple 
day,"  "the  purple  east,"  "the  purpled  air,"  "ground  empur- 
pled with  roses,"  "the  purple  spring,"  "purple  daffodils," 
are  such  as  would  serve  the  purpose  of  a  modern  impressionist 

I  Pope,  "Windsor  Forest,"  1.  ii8;  cf.  note  in  Courthope  edition. 
3  Shenstone,  "Virtuoso." 

3  Parnell,  "Anacreontic." 

4  Waller,  "On  a  Brede  of  Divers  Colors." 

s  Hugo  Blijmner,  "Die  Farbenbezeichnungen  bei  den  romischen 
Dichtern,"  pp.  184-98.  Blumner  shows  that  Trop^upco.s  was  used  by  the 
Greeks  with  widely  varying  meanings,  and  adds,  "Ganz  ahnlich  ist  der 
Gebrauch,  den  die  romischen  Dichter  von  purpureus  machen  nur  zweilfellos 
in  viel  weniger  urspriinglicher  Weise."  He  says  further  that  the  Latin 
poetical  use  of  "purpureus"  did  not  follow  the  speech  of  daily  life. 


NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  CLASSICAL  POETRY  49 

painter,  but  in  eighteenth-century  poetry  they  chiefly  indicate 
a  knowledge  of  the  classics.  They  were  clearly  imitative 
phrases. 

In  individual  cases  the  charge  of  imitation  is  a  hazardous 
one  to  make  because  so  difficult  to  prove.  However  close 
the  parallelism,  it  is  always  possible  to  believe  that  two  per- 
sons thought  of  the  same  thing  independently.  Where  a 
whole  literary  period  is  under  consideration  as  here,  all  that 
can  be  said  is  that  the  similarities  between  the  English  and 
the  Latin  forms  of  expression  are  numerous  and  striking,  that 
the  phrases  are  frequently  such  as  would  not  naturally  occur 
to  an  English  poet,  that  the  English  poets  had  little  first-hand 
knowledge  of  Nature,  and  that  they  knew  their  Virgil  and 
Horace  by  heart.  But  after  all,  the  inner  conviction  of  imi- 
tation with  which  one  turns  from  a  consecutive  reading  of 
the  two  literatures  is  a  more  legitimate  proof,  perhaps,  than 
even  a  liberal  assemblage  of  debatable  specific  cases. 

The  imitation  is  not  confined  to  diction.  Many  of  the 
favorite  similes,  especially  those  drawn  from  trees,  bees, 
leaves  in  autumn,  the  oak  and  vine,  angry  seas,  and  streams, 
have  a  Latin  cast.  They  seem  to  be  worked  out  on  Virgilian 
models,  and  it  is  impossible  not  to  feel  that  the  English  poet 
owed  more  to  his  classical  library  than  to  his  knowledge  of 
Nature.  One  striking  mark  of  imitation  is  the  prevalence 
of  the  artificial  cumulative  simile  so  common  in  Virgil. 

The  details  in  the  Latin  pastoral  poetry  are  also  freely 
transferred  to  descriptions  of  English  scenes.  The  poet 
could  not  describe  English  meadows  without  a  desire  to 
transplant  therein  some  fairer  blooms  from  "the  unenvious 
fields  of  Greece  and  Rome."  English  rivers,  skies,  seas, 
plains,  hills,  and  valleys  were  presided  over  by  classic  deities. 
Ceres,  Pomona,  and  Bacchus,  Dryads  and  Naiads,  were  as 
omnipotent  as   if  they  were   still  believed   in.     The  hardy 


X 


50  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

English  shepherd  was  transformed  into  a  languid  swain 
eternally  seeking  mossy  caves  as  a  refuge  against  burning 
heats.  His  chief  occupation  was  to  lie  beside  some  mur- 
muring rill,  or  beneath  some  spreading  beech,  or  under  some 
myrtle  hedge,  and  charm  the  listening  vale  with  love  ditties 
played  on  his  pipe:  or,  for  variety,  to  enter  into  some  amoe- 
bean  contest  with  a  neighboring  swain  concerning  the  rival 
beauty  of  their  respective  nymphs.  His  chief  troubles  were 
the  coyness,  fickleness,  and  desertion  of  this  same  much- 
praised  Phyllis  or  Chloris,'  and  the  occasional  incursion  of 
nightly  predatory  wolves  among  his  fleecy  flocks.  And  all 
this  calmly  in  the  face  of  the  fact  that  there  were  no  predatory 
animals  in  EngHsh  forests,  that  the  chief  enemies  of  the  Eng- 
lish shepherd  were  cold  and  storm,  and  that  he  would  be 
much  more  likely  to  seek  a  sunny  bank  than  a  cooling  grot. 
The  classical  English  poets  not  only  knew  nothing  of  the 
genuine  English  shepherd  such  as  Wordsworth's  Michael, 
but  they  did  not  wish  to  know  of  him.  It  was  their  ambition 
to  follow  in  the  path  marked  out  by  the  Mantuan  swain.  If 
they  could  write  so  that  every  line  would  "confess  Virgil"" 
they  were  satisfied.     Pope  said  that  it  was  the  poet's  office 

1  This  constant  use  of  Latin  and  Greek  names  for  English  peasants 
was  frequently  satirized.  Dryden  makes  Limberham  say  to  Brainsick, 
"  But  why,  of  all  names,  would  you  choose  a  Phyllis  ?  There  have  been  so 
many  Phyllises  in  song  I  thought  there  was  not  another  to  be  had  for  love 
or  money."— "Works,"  VI,  62.     Cf.  Watts,  "Meditation  in  a  Grove": 

No  Phyllis  shall  infect  the  air 
With  her  unhallow'd  name. 

2  Compare  Ridley's  characteristic  commendation  of  Christopher  Pitt's 

poems, 

In  every  line,  in  every  word,  you  speak 
I  read  the  Roman  and  confess  the  Greek, 

and  Pitt's  precept  in  Vida's  "  Art  of  Poetry,"  i,  102, 

Explore  the  ancients  with  a  watchful  eye, 
Lay  all  their  charms  and  elegancies  by, 
Then  to  their  use  the  precious  spoils  apply. 


NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  CLASSICAL  POETRY  51 

to  represent  shepherds  not  as  they  are  but  as  they  may  be 
conceived  to  have  been  in  some  past  golden  age.'  That 
golden  age  existed  apparently  in  the  Italy  of  Virgil  and 
the  Greece  of  Theocritus.  Dryden  gave  the  acceptable 
advice, 

For  guides  take  Virgil  and  read  Theocrite. 
By  them  alone  you'll  easily  comprehend 
How  poets,  without  shame,  may  condescend 
To  sing  of  gardens,  fields,  of  flowers,  and  fruit, 
To  stir  up  shepherds,  and  to  tune  the  flute. ^ 

Except  in  burlesque  no  poet  of  that  day  cared  to  change 
"Strephon  and  PhyUis"  into  "Tom  and  Bess."  The  great 
effort  was  to  dignify  humble  themes  by  constant  reference 
to  the  great  poems  of  the  past. 

The  general  structure  of  many  English  poems  was  evi- 
dently conformed  to  Latin  models.  A  comparison  of  the 
"Pastorals"  of  Pope,  Gay,  and  Ambrose  Philips  with  Vir- 
gil's ''Eclogues"  would  sufficiently  establish  this  point.^ 

Throughout  the  classical  poetry  of  Nature  there  is  little 
reliance  on  first-hand  observation.  There  was  safety  and 
dignity  in  following  Dick  Minim's  advice,  "When  you  sit 
down  to  write  think  what  your  favorite  author  would  say 
under  such  and  such  circumstances,"  and  the  favorite  authors 
were  sure  to  be  Virgil,  and  Horace,  and  Ovid. 

The  imitations  were  not,  however,  exclusively  from  the 
Latin  authors.  Often  the  Latin  borrowings  came  at  second 
hand  from  other  English  poets,  and  English  poets  borrowed 
freely  from  each  other.  /  A  single  instance  may  be  cited  to 
show  how  an  insipid  and  almost  unmeaning  collocation  of 

I  Pope,  "Discourse  on  Pastoral  Poetry." 

»  Dryden,  "Works,"  XV,  231. 

3  Compare  especially  Gay's  "Monday,"  Pope's  "Spring,"  and  Virgil's 
"Third  Eclogue."     Also  Gay's  "  Thursday,"  and  Virgil's  "Eighth  Eclogue." 


52  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

words  could  hold  its  own  and  be  re-echoed  from  poet  to  poet. 

Addison's  couplet, 

My  humble  verse  demands  a  softer  theme, 
A  painted  meadow,  or  a  purling  stream,^ 

was  imitated  by  Tickell  in, 

By  Nature  fitted  for  an  humble  theme 

A  painted  prospect,  or  a  murmuring  stream,' 

and  twice  by  Pope  in, 

Enough  to  shame  the  gentlest  bard  that  sings 
Of  painted  meadow  and  of  purling  springs,^ 

and 

Like  gentle  Fanny's  was  my  flowery  theme, 
A  painted  mistress  or  a  purhng  stream. -* 

Compare  also, 

Most  of  our  poets  choose  their  early  theme 
A  flowery  meadow  or  a  purling  stream. s 

But  one  other  sort  of  imitation  can  be  noticed  here,  and  that 

is  a  natural  outcome  from  the  use  of  the  rhymed  couplet.     It 

is  what  Pope  calls  "the  sure  return  of  still  expected  rhymes." 

The  common  rhyme  of  "stream"  and  "theme"  has  already 

been  noted.     Pope  calls  attention  to  others: 

Whene'er  you  find  the  "cooling  western  breeze" 
In  the  next  line  it  "whispers  through  the  trees." 
If  crystal  streams  "with  pleasing  murmurs  creep" 
The  reader's  threatened,  not  in  vain,  with  "sleep. '"^ 

The  last  reference  is  an  ungracious  hit  at  one  of  Wycherley's 
poems   recommendatory   of    Pope's    "Pastorals,"    but    the 

1  Addison,  "Letter  from  Italy"  (1701). 

2  Tickell,  "Oxford"  (1707). 

3  Pope,  "January  and  May,"  1.  454. 

4  Pope,  "Epistle  to  Dr.  Arbuthnot,"  1.  149. 

s  William  Thomson,  "To  the  Author  of  Leonidas." 
6  Pope,  "Essay  on  Criticism,"  i,  350. 


NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  CLASSICAL  POETRY  53 

rhyme  of  "breeze"  and  "trees"  is  certainly  of  a  bewildering 
frequency.  There  is  a  stanza  in  point  in  one  of  the  doubt- 
ful poems  attributed  to  Gray: 

First  when  Pastorals  I  read, 

Purling  streams  and  cooling  breezes 
I  only  wrote  of;  and  my  head 

Rhimed  on,  reclined  beneath  the  Tree-zes.^ 

One  cause  of  the  artificial  and  forced  effect  of  the  classical 
poetry'  of  Nature  is  undoubtedly  the  sameness  of  impression 
produced  by  this  frequent  recurrence  of  the  same  rhymes. 
In  the  foregoing  study  of  the  attitude  of  the  classical  poets 
toward  Nature  certain  dominant  characteristics  have  been 
indicated,  all  of  them  pointing  to  a  lack  of  interest  in  Nature. 
The  attention  of  the  age  was  concentrated  elsewhere.  Not 
Nature,  but  man  was  the  supreme  interest.  And  the  limi- 
tations must  be  drawn  even  more  closely,  for  the  interest  was 
not  in  man  as  man  according  to  the  democratic  spirit  of  the 
succeeding  romantic  age,  nor  in  man  as  a  creature  of  daring, 
of  wild  passions,  of  lawless  enthusiasms,  of  boundless  ener- 
gies, as  in  the  preceding  Elizabethan  age,  but  man  as  part 
of  a  well-organized  social  system.  Man  in  London  was  the 
central  thought  of  the  age.  This  supremacy  of  the  interest 
in  man  accounts  for  the  acknowledged  preference  for  city  life. 
In  the  country  bad  roads  and  poor  conveyances  effectually 
separated  men  from  each  other.  In  the  city  the  wits  of  the 
coffee-house  and  the  beaux  and  belles  of  the  drawing-room 
were  able  to  gain  the  social  converse  and  mutual  admiration 
necessary  to  their  happiness.  What  they  had  to  say  to  each 
other  was  incomparably  more  interesting  than  any  revelation 
from  Nature's  solitary  places.  Men  feared  and  disliked 
mountains  and  the  sea  because  these  natural  features  stood 
as  obstacles  to  the  easy  pursuit  of  many  pleasures,  and  because 

I  Gray,  "Ode." 


54  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

in  the  presence  of  forces  so  vast  and  elemental  men  felt  them- 
selves overawed  and  threatened.  What  they  could  not 
understand  and  conquer  was  their  foe.  They  turned  uneasily 
from  all  forms  of  Nature  that  suggest  mysterious,  unseen 
forces  over  which  man  has  no  control.  The  limitless  spaces 
of  the  sky,  the  "solemn  midnight's  tingling  silentness,"  the 
magical  charm  of  moonlight,  whatever  is  infinite  in  its  sug- 
gestiveness,  drawing  the  spirit  of  man  into  the  vast,  shadowy 
realms  of  the  unknown,  filled  them  with  dismay.  In  Nature 
as  in  everything  else  they  instinctively  confined  themselves 
to  such  portions  of  truth  as  they  could  clearly  state  and  use. 
The  kind  of  Nature  they  loved  was  that  in  which  man  was 
easily  supreme.  Their  delight  in  cultivated  rural  England 
was  largely  based  on  its  power  of  ministering  to  man's  ease 
and  physical  well-being.^     Their  delight  in  the  formal  garden 

I  In  this  connection  see  the  following  passages  from  Ruskin,  Hum- 
boldt, and  Veitch  on  Nature  in  the  poetr}'  of  the  ancients: 

"Thus,  as  far  as  I  recollect,  without  a  single  exception,  ever)'  Homeric 
landscape,  intended  to  be  beautiful,  is  composed  of  a  fountain,  a  meadow, 
and  a  shady  grove.  This  ideal  is  very  interestingly  marked,  as  intended 
for  a  perfect  one,  in  the  fifth  book  of  the  Odyssey;  when  Mercury  himself 
stops  for  a  moment,  though  on  a  message,  to  look  on  a  landscape  'which 
even  an  immortal  might  be  gladdened  to  behold.'  ....  Now  the  notable 
things  in  this  description  are,  first,  the  evident  subservience  of  the  whole 
landscape  to  human  comfort,  to  the  foot,  the  taste,  or  the  smell;  and, 
secondly,  that  throughout  the  passage  there  is  not  a  single  figurative  word 
expressive  of  the  things  being  in  any  wise  other  than  plain  grass,  fruit,  or 

flower If  we  glance  through  the  references  to  pleasant  landscape 

which  occur  in  other  parts  of  the  Odyssey,  we  shall  always  be  struck  by 
this  quiet  subjection  of  their  every  feature  to  human  service,  and  by  the 
excessive  similarity  in  the  scenes.  Perhaps  the  spot  intended,  after  this, 
to  be  most  perfect,  may  be  the  garden  of  Alcinous,  where  the  principal 
ideas  are,  still  more  definitely,  order,  symmetry,  and  fruitfulness." — Ruskin, 
"Modern  Painters,"  chapter  on  "Classical  Landscape." 

"Homer  looks  on  nature  as  it  affects  man — its  power  of  sustaining  life, 
its  subserviency  to  our  physical  wants.  Hence  the  side  of  nature  which  is 
lovingly  regarded  by  him  is  not  mountain,  or  rock,  or  wild  sea — all  fruitless 
and  barren — but  flat  soft  meadow-land,  diversified,  it  may  be,  with  tree 


NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  CLASSICAL  POETRY  55 

grew  out  of  their  pleasure  in  seeing  the  triumphal  expenditure 
of  human  effort.  There  Nature  was  "rhymed  and  twisted 
and  harmonized"  at  pleasure.  Man's  supremacy  was 
nowhere  else  more  effectually  acknowledged.  Not  art  con- 
cealed but  art  manifest  was  the  ideal.  Evelyn's  enjoyment 
of  French  and  Italian  gardens  is  almost  always  based  on  his 
pleasure  in  some  mechanical  device  whereby  man  had  con- 
quered Nature.'     What  Cowley  most  enjoyed  in  the  country 

and  fountain,  niied  with  waving  grass — good  pasture-land  for  nourishing 

the  useful  ox,  or  cow,  or  sheep In  Theocritus  ....  we  do  not  go 

beyond  the  softer  side  ....  the  accessories  of  the  shepherd's  life  faith- 
fully noted The  aspect  of  nature  which  Virgil  loved  was  the  soft 

and  pastoral  side  of  Italian  scenery.  In  so  far  as  he  has  depicted  free 
nature,  it  is  seen  almost  wholly  from  the  human  side,  and  in  its  relation  to 
man's  works,  life  and  action." — Veitch,  "The  Feeling  for  Nature  in  Scottish 
Poetry,"  I,  88-91. 

"Es  is  oftmals  ausgesprochen  worden,  dass  die  Freude  an  der  Natur, 
wenn  auch  dem  Alterthume  nicht  fremd,  doch  in  ihm  als  Ausdruck  des 
Gefiihls  sparsamer  und  minder  lebhaft  gewesen  sei  denn  in  der  neueren 

Zeit In  dem  hellenischen  Alterthum.  ....  das  eigentlich  Natur- 

beschreibende  zeigt  sich  dann  nur  als  ein  Beiwerk,  weil  in  der  griechischen 
Kunstbildung  sich  alles  gleichsam  im  Kreise  der  Menschheit  bewegt. 

"  Beschreibung  der  Natur  in  ihrer  gestaltenreichen  Mannigfaltigkeit 
Naturdichtung  als  ein  abgesonderter  Zweig  der  Litteratur,  war  den  Griechen 
voUig  fremd.  Auch  die  Landschaft  erscheint  bei  ihnen  nur  als  Hinter- 
grund  eines  Gemaldes,  vor  dem  menschliche  Gestalten  sich  bewegen. 
Leidenschaften  in  Thaten  ausbrechend  fesselten  fast  allein  den  Sinn.  Ein 
bewegtes  offentliches  Volksleben  zog  ab  von  der  dumpfen,  schwarmerischen 
Versenkung  in  das  stille  Treiben  der  Natur;  ja  den  physischen  Erscheinun- 
gen  wurde  immer  eine  Beziehung  auf  die  Menschheit  beigelegt,  sei  es  in 
den  Verhaltnissen  der  ausseren  Gestaltung  oder  der  inneren  anregenden 
Thatkraft.  Fast  nur  solche  Beziehungen  machten  die  Naturbetrachung 
wiirdig,  unter  der  sinnigen  Form  des  Gleichnisses,  als  abgesonderte  kleine 
Gemalde  voll  objectiver  Lebendigkeit  in  das  Gebiet  der  Dichtung  gezogen 
zu  werden." — "Kosmos,"  II,  5,  6. 

I  In  this  connection  compare  the  following  significant  passage  from 
Taine:  "Rien  ne  m'a  plus  interesse  dans  les  villas  romaines  que  leurs 
anciens  maitres.  Les  naturalistes  le  savent,  on  comprend  tres-bien  I'animal 
d'apres  la  coquille.     L'endroit  ou  j'ai  commence  a  le  comprendre  est  la 


56         NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

was  the  sense  of  his  own  skill  and  mastery.  The  "best 
natured"  satisfaction  of  all  is,  he  says,  the  husbandman's 
delight  in  "looking  round  about  him  and  seeing  nothing  but 
the  effects  and  improvements  of  his  own  art.'"  The  suprem- 
acy of  the  interest  in  man  is  further  explanatory  of  the  facts 
already  sufficiently  commented  upon  that  the  most  abundant 
use  of  Nature  was  in  similitudes  for  human  qualities  and 
passions,  that  these  similitudes  were  drawn  from  a  surpris- 
ingly small  number  of  natural  phenomena,  and  that  the  Nature 
side  of  the  similitudes  was  often  carelessly  and  ignorantly 
handled.  The  dominance  of  man  is  also  back  of  the  con- 
ception of  Nature  as  stirred  by  man's  joys  and  woes,  and 
plunged  into  despair  by  his  death.  Nature  is,  at  the  utmost, 
but  the  comparatively  unimportant  background  against 
which  man  acts  his  part,  and  there  is  seldom  any  effort  to 
suit  the  background  to  the  picture.  There  is  likewise  sig- 
nificance in  the  twofold  fact  that  in  the  set  poetic  diction  there 
are  many  words  and  phrases  relating  to  Nature  and  compara- 
tively few  relating  to  man.  Where  there  was  a  concentra- 
tion of  interest  the  vividness  of  the  conception  demanded 
new  and  original  forms  of  speech,  while  the  stock  diction, 

villa  Albani Cette  villa  est  un  debris,  comme  le  squellette  fossile 

d'une  vie  qui  a  dure  deux  siecles,  et  dont  le  principal  plaisir  consistait  dans 
la  conversation,  dans  la  belle  representation,  dans  les  habitudes  de  salon, 
et  d'antichambre.  L'homme  ne  s'interessait  pas  aux  objets  inanimes,  il 
ne  leur  reconnaissait  pas  une  ame  et  une  beaute  propre;  ils  ne  servaient 
que  de  fond  au  tableau,  fond  vague  et  d'importance  moins  qu'accessoire. 
Toute  I'attention  etait  occupee  par  le  tableau  lui-meme,  c'est-a-dire  par 
Tintrigue  et  le  drame  humain.  Pour  reporter  quelque  partie  de  cette 
attention  sur  les  arbres,  les  eaux,  le  paysage,  il  fallait  les  humaniser,  leur 
oter,  leur  forme  et  leur  disposition  naturelle,  leur  air  'sauvage,'  I'apparence 
du  desordre  et  du  desert,  leur  donner  autant  que  possible  I'aspect  d'un 
salon,  d'un  galerie  a  colonnades,  d'une  grande  cour  de  palais." — Taine, 
"Voyage  en  Italie,"  I,  231,  232  (Paris,  Librairie  Hatchette  et  Cie,  1893). 

•  Cowley,  "  Of  Agriculture." 


NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  CLASSICAL  POETRY  57 

like  cant  in  religious  expression,  showed  the  absence  of  genu- 
ine feeling.  It  is  in  Pope's  "Pastorals"  not  in  "The  Dun- 
ciad"  that  we  find  stock  words,  conventional  phrases,  and 
hereditary  similes. 

In  summary  we  may  note  that  the  characteristic  attitude 
toward  Nature  in  the  classical  period  is  marked  by: 

a)  Prevailing  dislike  or  neglect  of  the  grand  or  the  terrible 
in  Nature  as  mountains,  the  ocean,  storms,  and  winter. 

b)  A  similar  dislike  or  neglect  of  the  mysterious  or  the 
remote,  as  the  various  phenomena  of  the  sky. 

c)  A  certain  apparent  friendliness  toward  the  gentle, 
pleasant,  serviceable  forms  of  Nature  as  in  rural  cultivated 
England,  in  spring  and  summer,  in  good  weather,  in  various 
forms  of  horticulture. 

d)  An  especial  pleasure  in  Nature  ordered  and  made  sym- 
metrical by  art,  as  in  formal  gardens  and  parks. 

e)  Descriptions  of  a  highly  generalized  sort  with  almost 
no  touches  of  local  color. 

/)  Full  but  conventional  and  superficial  use  of  Nature  in 
similitudes  for  human  passions  and  actions. 

g)  Narrow,  uninterested,  and  hence  frequently  inaccurate 
observation  of  natural  facts. 

h)  Cold  and  lifehss  imitation  of  the  forms  and  details 
without  the  spirit  of  Latin  models. 

i)  A  vocabulary  restricted  and  imitative  in  character. 

j)  An  underlying  conception  of  Nature  as  entirely  apart 
from  man,  and  to  be  reckoned  with  merely  as  his  servant  or 
his  foe. 


CHAPTER  II 

INDICATIONS  OF  A  NEW  ATTITUDE  TOWARD  NATURE 
IN  THE  POETRY  OF  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY 

In  this  chapter  the  method  of  work  is  quite  unhke  that 
in  the  preceding  study.  The  typical  and  the  dominant  are 
not  regarded.  Attention  is  rather  converged  upon  the  sig- 
nificant exception.  We  are  led  into  nooks  and  corners  and 
byways.  The  most  famous  author  is  not  necessarily  the 
one  on  whom  emphasis  is  placed.  In  searching  for  legitimate 
proof  of  a  tendency  we  may  safely  turn  to  the  work  of  men  of 
unoriginal  genius  and  moderate  power.  A  study  of  this 
sort  would  certainly  give  a  distorted  view  if  it  were  for  a 
moment  thought  to  represent  the  period  as  a  whole.  But 
if  it  is  held  in  mind  that  the  attitude  toward  Nature  was  in 
general  through  the  eighteenth  century  marked  by  indifference 
and  artificiality,  we  may  throw  as  high  lights  as  we  please 
on  the  exceptions.  This  study  will  serve  its  purpose  if,  in  its 
following-out  of  the  complexities  and  inconsistencies  that 
make  a  transition  period  interesting,  it  shall  succeed  in  show- 
ing that,  along  with  the  classical  feeling  toward  Nature,  there 
was  also  a  real  and  vital  love  for  the  out-door  world,  and 
that  this  new  attitude  toward  Nature  is  marked  by  first-hand 
observation,  by  artistic  sensitiveness  to  beauty,  by  personal 
enthusiasm  for  Nature,  by  a  recognition  of  the  effect  of  Nature 
on  man,  and,  occasionally,  by  an  imaginative  conception 
of  Nature  somewhat  in  the  Wordsworthian  sense. 

The  new  attitude  toward  Nature,  of  which  Thomson  is  the 
first  adequate  exponent,  finds  occasional  and  not  ineffective 
expression  during  the  two  decades  before  the  publication  of 
"Winter"  in  1726.     In  the  works  of  John  Philips  (1676- 

58 


NEW  ATTITUDE  TOWARD  NATURE  59 

1709),  Ambrose  Philips  (1675-1749),  Lady  Winchilsea 
(1661-1720),  John  Gay  (1685-1732),  Thomas  Parnell  (1679- 
17 18),  Wilham  Pattison  (1706-17 2 7),  Allan  Ramsay  (1686- 
1758),  Robert  Riccaltoun  (1691-1769),  and  Dr.  Armstrong 
(1709-17 79),  we  become  more  or  less  definitely  aware  of  a 
new  outlook  on  the  external  world. 

Dr.  Johnson  praised  John  Philips'  poem  ''Cyder  "^  because 
it  had  the  "peculiar  merit"  of  being  "grounded  in  truth." 
On  the  whole  this  poem  is  of  the  didactic  classical  order, 
but  here  and  there  among  the  minutely  accurate  horticultural 
precepts  we  come  upon  indications  that  the  poet  was  not 
insensible  to  the  charms  of  Nature  in  other  than  its  utilitarian 
aspects.  His  delight  in  color  may  be  seen  from  his  specific 
descriptions  of  apples.  The  pippin  is  "burnish'd  o'er  with 
gold;"  the  red-streak  "with  gold  irradiate  and  vermilion 
shines."  "Plumbs"  are  "sky-dyed."  He  notes  the  "Ore, 
Azure,  Gules,"  and  the  blending  of  colors  in  the  rainbow. 
He  observes  the  contrast  between  fields  yellow  with  grain, 
and  green  pasture  land.  And  he  sees  the  colored  edges  of 
clouds  when  the  sun  breaks  through.  There  is  also  apparent 
a  sensitiveness  to  odors.  He  speaks  of  cowslip-posies  ''faintly 
sweet,"  of  odorous  herbs,  of  the  fragrance  of  apples  on  a 
dewy  autumn  morning,  and  of  "the  perfuming  flowery  bean." 
Mr.  Shairp  credits  Thomson  with  being  the  first  poet  to  men- 
tion the  fragrance  of  the  bean  fields,^  but  Philips  is  at  least 
twenty  years  ahead  of  Thomson  in  noting  this  fact. 

We  see  further  indication  of  Philips'  enjoyment  of  Nature 

in  a  few  lines. 

Nor  are  the  hills  unamiable,  whose  tops 
To  heaven  aspire,  affording  prospect  sweet 
To  human  ken,^ 

1  "Cyder,"  i,  248. 

2  Shairp,  "The  Poetic  Interpretation  of  Nature,"  p.  199. 

3  "Cyder,"  1,563. 


6o  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

which  were  perhaps  the  earliest  expression  in  the  eighteenth 
century  of  that  pleasure  in  high  hills  and  wide  prospects  that 
was  so  marked  a  characteristic  of  later  poetry.  Philips' 
explanation  of  the  satisfaction  he  found  in  an  early  morning 
walk,  namely,  that  the  mind  perplexed  with  irksome  thought 
is  calmed  by  the  influence  of  Nature,^  seems  like  a  prophecy 
of  the  thought  afterward  dominant  concerning  man's  indebt- 
edness to  Nature. 

In  Ambrose  Philips'  "Pastorals"  we  find  a  mingling  of 
first-hand  observation  and  classical  imitation.  His  references 
to  the  ancients,  his  amoebean  contests,  the  supposed  effect 
of  the  death  of  Albino  on  the  external  world,  the  emphasis 
on  dangers  from  heat  and  the  nightly  wolf,  the  frequent  use 
of  cumulative  comparisons,^  and,  in  general,  the  form  of 
his  "Pastorals,"  show  how  closely  he  was  held  by  conven- 
tional ideas.  Furthermore,  his  facile  use  of  Nature  is  always 
determined  by  his  attitude  toward  some  pastoral  nymph 
or  swain.  He  rejoices  to  paint  an  idyllic  background  for 
some  Rosalind.  He  heaps  up  images  from  Nature  to  express 
the  amorous  praises  of  some  Colinet.  He  has  no  conception 
of  a  relation  between  man  and  Nature  more  intimate  than 
the  highly  artificial  one  of  his  "Pastorals."  What  is  of 
importance  in  his  poetry  is  the  fact  that  in  the  midst  of  his 
imitations  and  conventionalities  are  many  true  and  charming 
observations  drawn  entirely  from  English  country  life  and 
not  found  in  earlier  eighteenth-century  poetry.  His  work  is, 
to  be  sure,  rendered  weak  and  childish  by  two  unpleasant 
mannerisms  in  diction:  his  use  of  adjectives  ending  in  "y,"  as 
"bloomy,"  "dampy,"  "bluey,"  "steepy,"  "purply,"  and  so 
on,  and  his  use  of  diminutives  such  as  "kidlings,"  "lambkins," 

I  "Cyder,"  ii,  65. 

3  "Pastorals,"  i,  6;   iii,  i,  6;  iii,  41-44;    iii,  69-74;   i,  10;  iv,  154;  v,  8; 
i,  27;  ii,  59;  ii,  125-28;  iii,  65-68;  iv,  153-60. 


NEW  ATTITUDE  TOWARD  NATURE  6i 

"younglings,"  "firstlings,"  and  "steerlings."  But  on  the 
whole  we  find  in  his  poems  a  more  full  and  accurate  knowl- 
edge of  Nature  than  is  at  all  common  in  the  poetry  of  the 
time.  He  notes  the  fleeting,  dusky  shadows  cast  by  moving 
clouds,  the  glossiness  of  plums,  the  blue  color  of  mists,  the 
sweet  odors  of  morning,  the  moaning  of  the  night  wind  in 
the  grove,  the  sportive  chase  of  swallows,  the  loud  note  of 
the  cuckoo,  the  speckled  breast  of  the  thrush,  and  the  song 
of  the  blackbird  ''fluting  through  his  yellow  bill."  He  usually 
calls  flowers,  trees,  birds,  and  other  animals  by  their  specific 
names,  and  he  seldom  extends  his  list  beyond  his  own  prob- 
able observation.  That  Philips  had  a  genuine  love  for  Nature 
in  her  milder  forms  is  further  seen  from  the  preface  to  his 
"Pastorals."  "As  in  Painting,"  he  says,  "so  in  Poetry, 
tlve  country  affords  not  only  the  most  delightful  scenes  and 
prospects,  but  likewise  the  most  pleasing  images  of  life." 
He  loved  the  songs  of  birds  because  the  "sedate  and  quiet 
harmony"  of  their  simple  strains  gives  "a  sweet  and  gentle 
composure  to  the  mind."  And  he  was  conscious  of  an 
"unspeakable  sort  of  satisfaction"  when  he  saw  "a  little 
country-dwelling,  advantageously  situated  amidst  a  beautiful 
variety  of  hills,  meadows,  fields,  woods  and  rivulets." 

Lady  Winchilsea  is,  in  the  study  of  the  poetry  of  Nature, 
the  most  significant  of  the  minor  poets  before  Thomson. 
She  was  a  friend  of  Rowe  and  Pope,  and  was  honored  by 
complimentary  verses  from  them.^  She  is  known  now 
chiefly  because  of  Wordsworth's  reference  to  her,^  and 
through  the  poems  published  in  Ward's  "English  Poets. "^ 

1  RowC;  "An  Epistle  to  Flavia;"  Pope,  "An  Impromptu  to  Lady 
Winchilsea." 

2  Wordsworth;  "Essay,  Supplementary  to  the  Preface." 

3  The  estimate  of  Lady  Winchilsea  here  given  was  based  on  the  17 13 
edition  of  her  poems.  In  1903,  through  the  kindness  of  Mr.  Edmund  Gosse 
and  of  the  Earl  of  Winchilsea,  I  was  enabled  to  bring  out  a  complete  edition 


62  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

Three  of  the  poems  there  given,  "The  Nightingale,"  "The 
Tree,"  "A  Nocturnal  Revery,"  have  to  do  with  Nature. 
With  these  exceptions  the  eighty-one  poems  in  the  collection 
of  1 7 13'  are  thoroughly  classical  in  their  form  and  spirit, 
though  unmarked  by  any  preponderance  of  artificial  fancies. 
But  these  three  short  poems  are  remarkable  productions 
when  thought  of  in  connection  with  their  author's  poetical 
environment.  They  are  the  earliest  eighteenth-century 
poems  in  which  Nature  is  frankly  chosen  as  the  theme,  and 
they  show  a  personal  knowledge  that  must  have  been  the 
accumulated  result  of  many  experiences. 

The  observation  in  "The  Nightingale"  is  especially 
truthful  and  sympathetic.  That  there  is  no  attempt  to 
describe  the  bird  is  an  omission  justified  by  the  fact  that  the 
nightingale  is  seldom  seen.^  The  two  characteristics  noted 
in  the  bird's  song  are  its  exceeding  sweetness  and  its  sadness, 
or  rather,  its  sense  of  pain.^     A  comparison  of  the  phrases 

of  her  works.  In  the  Introduction  to  those  poems  I  have  endeavored  to 
indicate  Lady  Winchilsea's  literary  qualities  and  affiliations,  and  to  give 
some  idea  of  her  life  and  personality.  So  far  as  her  attitude  toward  Nature 
is  concerned  nothing  is  to  be  found  in  the  scope  of  her  voluminous  verse 
that  is  of  higher  significance  than  the  poems  published  by  Ward.  The 
new  fact  that  does  emerge  from  a  fuller  knowledge  of  her  writings  is  the 
very  interesting  relation  between  her  poetry  of  Nature  and  the  events  of  her 
life.  For  an  analysis  of  this  relation  I  must  refer  to  pp.  cxxxiii-cxxxiv  of  the 
Introduction  to  my  edition  of  her  poems  ("The  Poems  of  Anne,  Countess  of 
Winchilsea,"  The  University  of  Chicago  Press,  1903). 

»  "Miscellany  Poems  on  Several  Occasions,"  Written  by  a  Lady,  1713, 

2  In  the  references  to  the  nightingale  by  Chaucer,  Milton,  Cowper, 
Wordsworth,  Keats,  Shelley,  Matthew  Arnold,  and  Mrs.  Browning,  the  only 
approaches  to  description  of  the  appearance  of  the  bird  are  Matthew  Arnold's 
"tawny-throated,"  Keats'  "full-throated,"  and  Coleridge's  "bright,  bright 
eyes,  their  eyes  both  bright  and  full." 

3  Cf.  Milton's,  "sweetest,  saddest  plight;"  or  "most  musical,  most 
melancholy;"  and  Shelley's,  "melodious  pain;"  and  Keats'  "plaintive 
anthem;"    and  Matthew  Arnold's,  "Wild,  unquenched,  deep-sunken,  old- 


NEW  ATTITUDE  TOWARD  NATURE  63 

in  the  note  will  show  that  Lady  Winchilsea  listened  with  the 
hearing  ear  of  a  true  poet.  But  we  cannot  fail  to  notice  as 
well  that  the  song  is  not  fully  heard  or  reported.  In  the 
other  poets  we  find  represented  a  richness,  a  fulness,  an 
ecstasy,  a  tumult,  not  even  hinted  at  in  Lady  Winchilsea's 
poem.^  Nor  does  she  mention  the  passion  most  poets  have 
heard  in  the  song.^  But  however  incomplete  the  impression 
received  may  have  been,  the  poetical  record  of  what  was 
perceived  is  both  truthful  and  vivid.  She  seems  to  wTite 
as  she  listens  and  the  reader  follows  the  variations  of  the  song 
through  their  effect  on  her  own  mind. 

In  the  fifty-two  lines  of  the  poem  on  Night  twenty-two 
natural  facts  are  recorded.  Some  of  these  would  not  escape 
the  most  careless,  but  only  close  observation  would  discover 
such  details  as  the  sleepy  cowslip,  the  grass  standing  upright, 
the  unusual  strength  of  odors,  the  clearer  sound  of  falling 
waters,  the  horse's  audible  cropping  of  the  grass,  the  waving 
moon  seen  in  the  stream,  and  the  distant  call  of  the  curlew. 
Lady  Winchilsea's  love  of  Nature  was  of  the  most  unambi- 
tious sort.  To  have  seen  the  stately  tree,  to  have  heard  the 
nightingale,  to  know  all  she  did  about  night,  would  not  have 

world  pain."  Coleridge  speaks  once  of  "pity-pleading  strains,"  but  in 
another  poem  contends  for  the  "merry  nightingale,"  and  refuses  to  hear 
anything  but  "love  and  joyance"  in  the   song. 

I  Cf.  Matthew  Arnold's 

"How  thick  the  bursts  come  crowding  through  the  leaves;" 

and  Chaucer's  "lusty  nightingale"  whose  voice  made  a  "loud  rioting;" 

and  Shelley's  "storm  of  sound;"  and  Wordsworth's  "tumultuous  harmony;" 

and  Keats'  "pouring  forth  thy   soul   abroad   in   such  an  ecstasy;"    and 

Coleridge's 

The  merry  nightingale 
That  crowds  and  hurries  and  precipitates 
With  fast  thick  warble  his  deHcious  notes. 

'  Cf .  Arnold's  "Eternal  passion!"  Milton's  "amorous  power;" 
Shelley's  "voluptuous  nightingale;"  Coleridge's  "wanton  song;"  and  all 
of  Mrs.  Browning's  "Bianca  among  the  Nightingales." 


64  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

called  her  beyond  the  gates  of  her  own  park.  But  her  joy 
in  Nature  needed  no  strong  or  novel  stimulus.  It  is  her 
distinction  that  she  had  fixed  an  "exquisite  regard"  on  the 
commonest  facts  of  the  external  world,  and  that  she  spoke- 
quite  clearly  and  simply  from  her  own  life.  Hence  her  knowl- 
edge had  the  new  quality  of  being  specific  and  local  and  accu- 
rately defined. 

Still  more  noteworthy  is  Lady  Winchilsea's  spiritual  sensi- 
tiveness to  Nature.  Such  a  phrase  as  "  the  mysterious  face 
of  heaven"  marks  a  new  conception  of  the  sky.  Night  is  no 
longer  "the  parent  of  fears"  but  a  time  whose  solemn  quiet 
suggests  a  strange  and  subtle  sense  of  something  too  high 
for  syllables  to  speak.  Nature  is  to  her  no  m.ere  background 
for  human  life.  Man  is  influenced  by  Nature.  His  rage  is 
disarmed.  His  spirit  is  led  to  feel  a  sedate  content.  And 
sometimes  in  moments  of  especial  insight  there  is  revealed 
to  him  in  the  inferior  world  an  existence  "like  his  own." 
Not  often  before  Wordsworth  is  there  so  distinct  a  prevision 
of  his  way  of  looking  at  Nature.' 

In  the  slow  turning  of  English  poetry  from  the  artificial 
to  the  natural  John  Gay  was  distinctly  helpful,  yet  the  reader 
of  "Trivia,"  "The  Fan,"  "The  Epistles,"  the  "Fables,"  and 
even  the  "Eclogues"  would  hardly  suspect  their  author  of 
knowing,  in  any  close  way,  any  life  outside  the  city.  It  is 
only  in  "Rural  Sports,"  written  when  he  was  twenty-eight, 
and  "The  Shepherd's  Week,"  when  he  was  twenty-nine,  that 
we  find  any  real  study  of  Nature.  In  " Rural  Sports"  hunting 
and  especially  fishing  are  described  with  the  enthusiasm  and 
technical  accuracy  of  an  expert.  There  is  no  hint  of  the 
feeling  toward  animals  that  made  Thomson  and  Cowper 
abhor  hunting.  There  is  simply  a  thoroughly  sportsmanlike 
knowledge  of  details,  a  sense  of  pleasurable  excitement  in 

I  Cf.  Gosse,  "Gossip  in  a  Library,"  p.  123;  "Eighteenth  Century,"  p.  35. 


NEW  ATTITUDE  TOWARD  NATURE  65 

the  chase,  and  joy  in  victory.  This  delight  in  open-air 
pursuits  is  often  far  enough  removed  from  any  real  love  of 
Nature,  and  is  here  of  much  less  significance  than  casual 
passages  showing  Gay's  love  of  the  world  about  him.  He 
tells  us  that  it  was  his  habit  to  take  morning  walks  through 
the  fields,^  that  at  sunset  he  often  strayed  out  to  the  cliffs 
near  Barnstaple,  and  lingered  to  watch  the  glowing  colors 
of  the  sunset,  and  the  later  beauty  of  an  '^unclouded  sky" 
bright  with  stars  and  a  silver  moon  that  marked  a  glittering 
path  along  the  sea.^  Gay's  love  of  Nature  was  largely  con- 
fined to  the  milder  aspects,  but  he  seems  not  to  have  been 
entirely  indifferent  to  hills.  In  speaking  of  Cotton  Hill  in 
North  Devonshire  he  said. 

When  its  summit  I  climb,  I  then  seem  to  be 

Just  as  if  I  approached  nearer  heaven ! 

When  with  spirits  depress'd  to  this  hill  I  repair, 

My  spirits  then  instantly  rally; 

It  was  near  this  bless'd  spot,  I  first  drew  vital  air, 

So — a  hill  I  prefer  to  a  valley. ^ 

In  six  or  seven  unimportant  passages  Gay  speaks  of  hills  or 
mountains,  apparently  using  the  words  interchangeably,  but 
not  in  a  manner  indicating  much  knowledge  of  them.  Yet 
such  little  pictures  as  that  of  the  dawn  when  the  sun  "strikes 
the  distant  eastern  hills  with  light,''  or  that  of  "the  evening 
star  shining  above  the  western  hill,"  show  some  recognition 
of  hills  as  an  attractive  part  of  a  landscape.  Gay  knows 
flowers  and  birds  and  trees  with  some  definiteness.  He 
speaks  of  many  domestic  animals.  He  notes  colors  and 
odors.-*    He    observes    the    lengthened    shadows    stretched 

1  Gay,  "Rural  Sports,"  i,  35. 

2  Ihid,  i,  99.  3  Gay's  "  Chair." 

4  See  "Coquette  Mother  and  Daughter"  for  a  second  reference  to  the 
fragrant  bean-flower  before  Thomson. 


66         NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

across  the  meadows  in  the  late  afternoon,  the  long  flight  of 
crows  seeking  the  wood  at  sunset,  the  streams  "wrinkled"' 
by  a  fresh  breeze,  the  yellow  showers  of  leaves  in  autumn. 
Abundant  and  varied  as  is  this  use  of  Nature,  it  is  not  marked 
by  especial  delicacy  of  feeling  or  accuracy  of  observation. 
But  for  all  that  "The  Shepherd's  Week"  is  a  notable  piece 
of  work,  and  it  is  in  these  pastorals  that  we  find  Gay's  real 
service.  Whether  meant  as  a  friendly  aid  in  Pope's  castiga- 
tion  of  Ambrose  Philips  or  not,  these  poems  were  unquestion- 
ably meant  as  a  good-humored  satire  on  pastorals  that  ven- 
tured to  deal  truthfully  with  English  rustic  life.  The  Latin 
form  was  counted  the  ideal  one  for  pastoral.  To  this  form 
Gay  held,  evidendy  with  the  conscious  purpose  of  suggesting 
the  Latin  at  every  turn.  Then  he  filled  in  this  mold  with 
the  homeliest,  most  realistic  details  of  English  country  life.' 
The  plain,  practical  truth  of  these  details  is  simply  amazing 
as  will  be  seen  from  the  passages  indicated  in  the  note.  See 
also  the  flowers  brought  in,  the  primrose,  kingcup,  clover, 
daisie,  gilhflower,  mary-gold,  butter-flowers,  cowslip,  and 
others;  and  the  animals,  the  witless  lamb,  frisking  kid, 
udder'd  cow,  clucking  hen,  waddling  goose,  squeaking  pigs, 
worrying  cur,  whining  swine,  paddling  ducks,  guzzling  hogs, 
and  others;  and  the  country  sports,  as  romping  in  the  fields, 
bhndman's  buff,  hot  cockles,  swinging,  and  others.^  In  Pas- 
toral IV  is  an  assemblage  of  curious  country  superstitions;  in 
Pastoral  I  are  given  signs  of  rain;  in   Pastoral   V  are  fu- 

I  Compare  Tennyson's  "wrinkled  sea"  in  "The  Eagle." 
a  As  illustrative  of  this  point  compare,  Virgil,  Eclogue  viii,  27,  28,  and 
Gay,  Pastoral  III,  59-62;  Virgil,  Eclogue  i,  59-63,  and  Gay,  Pastoral  III, 
67-72;  Virgil,  Eclogue  v,  36-39,  and  Gay,  Pastoral  V,  83-87;  Virgil, 
Eclogue  V,  76-78,  and  Gay,  Pastoral  V,  153-58;  Virgil,  Eclogue  iv,  1-3, 
and  Gay,  Pastoral  VI,  1-3;  Virgil,  Eclogue  vi,  and  Gay,  Pastoral  VI;  Vir- 
gil, Eclogue  viii,  and  Gay,  Pastoral  IV. 
3  Pastoral  1. 


NEW  ATTITUDE  TOWARD  NATURE  67 

neral  customs;  and  in  Pastoral  VI  an  account  of  the  favorite 
country  songs.  These  poems  are  a  veritable  treasure-house 
for  the  student  of  folk-lore.  They  might  also  serve  as  a 
diary  of  country  occupations.  Take  for  example  Bumkinet's 
reminiscences  of  Blouzelinda's  life  in  Pastoral  V.  In  such 
a  wood,  he  remembers,  they  gathered  fagots.  There  he  drew 
down  hazel  boughs  and  stuffed  her  apron  with  brown  nuts. 
In  another  place  he  had  helped  her  hunt  for  her  strayed  hogs, 
and  as  they  drove  the  untoward  creatures  to  the  sty  had 
seized  the  opportunity  to  tell  his  love.  At  the  dairy  he  had 
often  seen  her  making  butter  pats,  or  feeding  with  floods  of 
whey  the  hogs  that  crowded  to  the  door.  In  the  barn  as  he 
plied  the  flail,  he  had  watched  her  sift  out  food  for  the  hens. 
In  the  field  she  had  ranged  the  sheaves  as  he  pitched  them 
on  the  growing  mow.  The  object  of  these  pastorals  w^as  to 
show  the  absurd  incongruity  between  the  Latin  form  with 
its  suggestions  of  Arcadian  days,  and  the  roughness  of  Eng- 
lish country  life.  The  result  was  unexpected.  Readers  in 
general,  indifferent  to  scholarly  congruities,  were  delighted 
with  the  novelty,  the  air  of  freshness  and  truth,  in  the  pictures 
scattered  through  the  "Pastorals."  Poetry  had  suddenly 
and  without  meaning  to  do  it,  gone  from  the  city  and  the  park 
to  the  very  plainest  and  most  matter-of-fact  sort  of  country 
people  and  country  occupations,  and  had  somehow  made 
them  attractive.  Blouzelinda  and  Buxoma  are  not  in  the 
same  order  of  beings  as  the  traditional  Phyflis  and  Chloris,and 
they  are  equally  far  removed  from  the  vulgar  repulsive  country 
wenches  in  Swift's  coarse  satires.  They  are  real  beings  with 
a  charm  of  their  own,  and  the  love  they  inspire  in  Lobbin 
Clout  and  Cuddy  is  an  everyday,  quite  comprehensible  affair. 
The  dirge  for  Blouzelinda  indicates  well  the  covert  laugh 
with  which  Gay  wrote  these  descriptions  of  country  life. 
The  clergyman  said 


68  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

that  Heaven  would  take  her  soul,  no  doubt, 
And  spoke  the  hour-glass  in  her  praise — quite  out. 

After  the  funeral  the  men  trudged 

homeward  to  her  mother's  farm. 
To  drink  new  cyder  mull'd,  with  ginger  warm, 
For  gaffer  Tread-well  told  us,  by  the  by, 
** Excessive  sorrow  is  exceeding  dry." 

This  sense  of  fun  is  everywhere  apparent,  and  shows  how 
unwittingly  Gay  broke  a  lance  in  a  new  cause.  Yet  some 
parts  of  his  Preface  are  startlingly  modern  in  their  plea  for 
truth  to  Nature.  Here  is  a  passage  which,  so  far  as  its  spirit 
is  concerned,  might  have  been  said  by  either  Crabbe  or 
Wordsworth. 

Thou  wilt  not  find  my  shepherdesses  idly  piping  on  oaten  reeds, 
but  milking  the  kine,  tying  up  the  sheaves,  or,  if  the  hogs  are  astray, 
driving  them  to  the  styes.  My  shepherd  gathereth  none  other  nose- 
gays but  what  are  the  growth  of  our  own  fields;  he  sleepeth  not  under 
myrtle  shades,  but  under  a  hedge;  nor  doth  he  vigilantly  defend  his 
flock  from  wolves  for  there  are  none. 

Whatever  Gay  meant  to  do,  he  really  did  accomplish  what 
his  Preface  states  as  his  aim.  He  turned  poetry  aw^y  from 
the  "insipid  delicacy"  of  the  conventional  pastoral,  and 
truthfully  represented  the  "plain  downright  hearty  cleanly 
folk"  of  rustic  England.  And  external  Nature,  though 
nowhere  dwelt  upon  for  its  own  sake,  is  everywhere  present 
and  so  vividly  portrayed,  that  the  reader  had  what  was  cer- 
tainly a  poetic  novelty  at  that  day,  "a  lively  landscape  of 
his  own  country,  just  as  he  might  have  seen  it,  if  he  had  taken 
a  walk  in  the  fields  at  the  proper  season." 

The  use  of  external  Nature  in  Parnell's  poems  has  narrow 
hmits.  There  is  no  mention  of  winter,  autumn,  or  summer. 
Mountains  are  merely  noted  in  passing  as  disagreeable  fea- 
tures in  the  poet's  dreary  surroundings  in  Ireland.     There 


NEW  ATTITUDE  TOWARD  NATURE  69 

is  but  one  line  about  the  sea.  Wild  scenery  of  whatever  sort  is 
ignored.  The  only  storm  is  described  in  some  conventional 
lines  in  "  The  Hermit."  There  is  almost  no  record  of  specific 
knowledge  of  trees,  or  flowers,  or  birds.  There  are  few  indi- 
cations of  openness  to  sensuous  impressions  from  specific 
forms,  colors,  odors,  sounds.  But  in  spite  of  these  widely 
inclusive  negations,  Parnell  is  of  distinct  importance  as  a  poet 
of  Nature.  He  has,  to  begin  with,  some  accurate  first-hand 
observation.  He  speaks  once  of  the  "differing  green"  of 
trees  in  spring.  He  describes  a  fern  with  some  minuteness. 
There  are  two  charming  descriptions  of  banks  and  skies  re- 
flected in  clear  water.'     Other  fresh  observations  are. 

Now  early  shepherds  o'er  the  meadow  pass 
And  print  long  footsteps  in  the  glittering  grass.  ^ 

When  in  the  river  cows  for  coolness  stand 
And  sheep  for  breezes  seek  the  lofty  land;^ 

or  this  of  the  close  of  a  storm. 

But  now  the  clouds  in  airy  tumult  fly; 

The  sun  emerging  opes  an  azure  sky; 

A  fresher  green  the  smelling  leaves  display, 

And,  glittering  as  they  tremble,  cheer  the  day.'^ 

Such  lines  are  of  value  for  they  indicate,  though  they  are  few 
in  number,  some  power  of  direct  vision  and  of  restrained, 
simple  expression. 

Parnell's  distinctive  excellence  is,  however,  along  different 
lines.  He  records  not  facts  but  impressions.  He  is  essen- 
tially a  poet  of  the  spring;  he  felt  intensely  all  the  glad,  abun- 
dant life  of  the  early  year.  But  there  is  not  a  description  of 
spring  in  his  poems.  He  gives  instead  curiously  happy 
descriptive  touches  that  suggest  far  more  than  they  say. 

I  "Night  Piece  on  Death;"   "The  Hermit." 

=>  "Health."  3  "The  Flies."  4  "The  Hermit." 


70  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

Note  such  lines  as, 

When  spring  came  on  with  fresh  delight,^ 

or 

Green  was  her  robe,  and  green  her  wreath, 
Wher-e'er  she  trod  'twas  green  beneath,^ 

or 

The  planted  lanes  rejoice  with  dancing  leaves.' 

There  is  a  lilt  in  such  lines,  a  joyousness,  an  off-hand  cer- 
tainty of  touch,  not  in  keeping  with  the  customary  cold  and 
labored  descriptions  of  spring. 

Of  still  greater  significance  is  Parnell's  literary  use  of 
Nature.  In  the  "  Night  Piece  "  the  external  scene  serves  as  an 
appropriate  background  for  the  thought  presented.  The 
few  natural  facts  are  so  well  chosen  and  so  delicately  touched 
that  all  the  moral  reflections  seem  permeated  with  an  appro- 
priate out-of-doors  atmosphere.  The  calm,  perfect  beauty 
of  the  picture  of  night  with  its  closing  suggestions  of  mystery 
and  sadness,  the  fading  of  the  pale  moon,  and  the  sounds 
that  come  over  the  long  lake,  fit  exactly  the  course  of  the  poet's 
melancholy  meditation  and  contribute  to  it.  The  gay,  light 
pictures  in  the  "Hymn  to  Contentment"  are  equally  well 
suited  to  the  spirit  of  joyous  praise  with  which  that  poem 
concludes. 

Bishop  Jebb  has  pointed  out  for  the  enjoyment  of  the 
"classical  and  pious  reader"  the  similarity  between  the  moral 
reflections  in  this  poem  and  those  in  Cardinal  Bona's  "  Divina 
Psalmodia."^  Parnell's  close  adherence  to  the  thought  of 
the  cardinal  in  the  didactic  part  of  the  poem,  and  the  fact  that 
the  last  forty-two  lines,  the  ones  that  deal  with  Nature,  are 
entirely  Parnell's  own,  give  striking  proof  of  the  originality 
of  his  thought  concerning  the  external  world  and  its  power 

I  "Anacreontic." 

a  "Health."  3  Parnell,  "Poetical  Works,"  p.  77. 


NEW  ATTITUDE  TOWARD  NATURE  71 

over  the  human  heart.  It  is  in  these  Hnes  that  we  find  his 
most  subtly  suggestive  conception  of  Nature.  He  represents 
himself  as  sad  at  heart.  He  seeks  contentment  in  earthly- 
pomp,  in  the  paths  of  knowledge,  in  solitary  search  after 
diverting  scenes  in  Nature,  but  in  vain.  At  last  he  goes  to 
a  wood,  and  as  he  yields  himself  to  the  influence  of  the  place 
becomes  suddenly  aware  that  in  this  quiet  spot  the  true 
spirit  of  contentment  is  speaking  to  him  wise  lessons  of  self- 
control  and  communion  with  God.  In  gratitude  for  the  joy 
that  has  come  to  him  through  Nature  he  utters  a  song  of 
praise  to  the  "source  of  all  Nature,"  but  as  he  looks  about 
him  on  the  glad  world,  he  feels  that  his  song  is  merely  an 
expression  in  words  of  the  great  chorus  of  thanksgiving  going 
always  silently  up  from  sun  and  moon  and  stars,  from  seas, 
woods,  and  streams. 

Such  work  as  this  is  indeed  remarkable  before  17 13;  and 
for  spirituality  and  insight,  for  what  has  w^ell  been  called  "a, 
sense  of  the  thing  behind  the  thing,"  it  was  many  years  before 
it  was  paralleled. 

"The  Morning  Contemplation"  is  the  only  one  of  Patti- 
son's  poems  that  has  much  to  do  with  Nature.  It  was  written, 
his  friend  tells  us,  on  the  banks  of  a  river  where  the  young 
poet  used  to  wander,  endeavoring  to  attune  his  verses  to  the 
smoothness  and  harmony  of  the  stream.  He  was  especially 
sensitive  to  the  "sadly  pleasing  melancholy"  of  moonlight 
nights  and  solitary  walks,  and  he  was  one  of  the  first  poets 
to  express  a  longing  for  solitude  with  Nature.  Gilded  rooms 
of  state,  the  purple  slavery  of  towns,  rob  him  of  the  bliss  he 
finds  in  the  living  forest.  When  alone  in  the  spacious  fields 
he  thinks  himself  almost  a  god.  Even  little  scrubby  thorns 
are  to  him  more  pleasing  objects  than  courts  can  show. 
Nature  charms  his  senses  and  soothes  his  soul;  she  is  his  best 
teacher,  and  he  trusts  her  plain  instructions. 


72         NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

Tell  me,  all  ye  mighty  wise, 

Ye  governors  of  colleges; 

\\Tiat  deeper  wisdom  can  you  know 

Than  easy  nature's  works  here  show, 

reads  like  a  crude  prevision  of  Wordsworth's  "The  Tables 

Turned."     The    "excellent   morality"    of    "The   Morning 

Contemplation"  is  much  in  the  vein  of  Dyer's  "Grongar 

Hill."     Every  fact  in  Nature  arouses  some  thought  or  some 

emotion.     By  contrast  or  analogy  it  suggests  human  life, 

as  in  the  lines, 

See  this  river  as  it  goes. 
With  what  eloquence  it  flows; 


Believe  me,  life's  the  very  same, 
The  very  image  of  this  stream. 

Pattison's  poem  is  of  real  importance,  because  its  early 
date'  ranks  it  as  probably  the  first  of  the  eighteenth-century 
poems  that  treat  of  Nature  in  the  romantic,  sentimental,  fervid 
fashion  afterward  brought  to  its  culmination  by  the  Wartons. 

Allan  Ramsay's  education  was  of  the  most  limited  sort,  so 
that,  in  early  life  at  least,  the  development  of  his  genius  was 
unbiased  by  a  knowledge  of  Latin  and  Greek  or  even  English 
models.  After  he  was  fifteen  he  lived  in  Edinburgh  and 
there  began  to  be  infected  by  the  pseudo-classicism  of  his  day. 
The  poems  in  which  country  scenes  and  people  were  most 
fully  represented  were,  however,  pretty  clear  and  unadul- 
terated records  of  his  early  experiences  in  the  secluded  moun- 
tainous district  of  Lanarkshire  where  he  was  brought  up. 
The  best  poems  of  this  sort  are  the  pastoral  dialogues,  "  Patie 
and  Roger,"  1721,  and  "Jenny  and  Meggy,"  1723,  or  rather, 

I  Pattison  died  in  1727,  and  he  was  in  college  during  the  four  preceding 
years.  The  records  of  his  life  are  scanty,  but  he  probably  wrote  this  poem 
before  1723,  when  he  left  the  region  of  his  dear  Ituna,  that  being  the  stream 
on  whose  banks  he  was  accustomed  to  murmur  out  his  verses. 


NEW  ATTITUDE  TOWARD  NATURE  73 

"The  Gentle  Shepherd,"  1725,  which  is  a  combination  of  the 
two  pastorals  thrown  into  completer  dramatic  form.  A 
second  edition  of  "The  Gentle  Shepherd"  appeared  in  the 
same  year  as  Thomson's  "Winter."'  It  is  worthy  of  note 
that  the  service  rendered  by  Gay  to  English  poetry  is  in  many 
respects  paralleled  by  Allan  Ramsay's  contributions  to 
Scottish  song.  There  are  in  Ramsay's  pastorals  similar 
closely  studied  scenes  from  peasant  life,  wherein  are  minutely 
described  the  superstitions,^  the  household  customs,^  the 
out-door  occupations,'*  the  trials,^  and  the  pleasures'^  of  the 
homely  folk  among  the  hills  of  Scotland.  But  there  are 
important  differences.  What  Gay  did  lightly  and  without 
serious  intent  was  with  Ramsay  a  service  of  love.  He  was 
not  laughing  in  his  sleeve  at  the  very  truth  he  so  capitally 
portrayed.  Throughout  his  work  there  is,  in  general,  an 
air  of  sincerity.  It  is  as  if  Gay  wrote  from  the  point  of  view 
of  an  outsider  with  an  unfailingly  keen  eye,  and  a  quick  sense 
of  humor.  But  Ramsay  wrote  from  a  life  that  he  had  known 
and  loved,  and  that  he  thoroughly  respected.'  There  are 
occasional  false  notes  in  his  pastorals.  He  gives  his  shep- 
herds flutes  and  reeds;  his  comparisons,  especially  his  cumu- 
lative similes,  are  conventional;    he  makes  rather  stiff  use 

I  See  Ramsay,  "Poems,"  I,  xxvii. 

a  Cf.  "Richy  and  Sandy,"  1.  8;  "Robert,  Richy,  and  Sandy,"  11.  31-34; 
"Gentle  Shepherd,"  i,  i,  89;  i,  i,  148;  ii,  2,  17-40;  ii,  3,  27-47;  v,  i,  19-43- 

3  Cf.  "Gentle  Shepherd,"  i,  2,  190-93,  207;  i,  2,  200-204;  ">  i>  76-86; 
ii,  2,  Prologue;   ii,  i.  Prologue;   iii,  3,  111-16;   v,  2,  Prologue. 

4  Cf .  "Gentle  Shepherd,"  i,  i,  205;   i,  2,  1-4. 

s  Cf.  "Richy  and  Sandy,"  11.  49,  50;  "Gentle  Shepherd,"  i,  i,  43,  44, 
67-70,  156;  i,  2,  131-37;  song  viii. 

6  "Gentle  Shepherd,"  i,  2,  138-47;   ii,  4.  43-66;    iv,  2,  148-58. 

7  In  the  copious  notes  to  the  1815  edition  of  Pennecuik's  "Tweeddale" 
is  a  full  account  of  the  country  about  New-Hall,  accompanied  by  quotations 
from  Ramsay's  poem,  to  show  the  accuracy  of  his  descriptions. 


OF   THE 

l\AER3ITY 

OF 


74  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

of  personification;  and  his  desire  to  make  his  hero  and  heroine 
well  born  interferes  with  the  pastoral  simplicity  of  the  drama. 
But  these  are  extraneous  and  hardly  affect  the  real  texture 
of  the  work. 

We  find  in  Ramsay's  poems  occasional  hints  that  his 
presentation  of  homely  Scottish  scenes  and  people  was  not 
merely  instinctive,  but  that  it  was  in  some  measure  a  deliber- 
ate choice.  In  "Tartana,"  written  in  1721,  he  said  that  his 
chosen  muses  were  those  that  wandered  through  the  clover 
meadows  and  the  groves  along  the  smooth  meandering  Tweed 
or  by  the  gentle  Tay,  or  where  the  haughty  Clyde  roared  over 
lofty  cataracts. 

Phoebus,  and  his  imaginary  nine 
With  me  have  lost  the  title  of  divine; 
To  no  such  shadows  will  I  homage  pay. 
These  to  my  real  muses  shall  give  way. 

And  again,  protesting  against  the  narrowness  of  poetic 
rules  and  customs,  he  said, 

With  more  of  Nature  than  of  art 
From  stated  rules  I  often  start, — 
Rules  never  studied  yet  by  me. 
My  muse  is  British,  bold  and  free. 
And  loves  at  large  to  frisk  and  bound,  ^ 

I  "Answer  to  the  Foregoing"  (to  Somerville). 

In  the  poems  addressed  to  Allan  Ramsay  on  the  publication  of  his 
works  in  17  21  we  find  significant  critical  approval  based  on  Ramsay's 
avoidance  of  tame  Nature,  and  his  turning  from  the  authority  of  the  schools. 
The  simile  of  a  garden  recurs  in  a  poem  by  "C.  T."  He  planted  trees  in 
equal  rows  and  arranged  flowers  in  a  parterre,  but  found  his  labor  in  vain. 
The  narrow  scene  became  daily  more  distasteful  to  him,  and  finally  he 
went  back  to  the  fields  where  "Nature  wantoned  in  her  prime."  Here  he 
found  space,  variety,  surprise,  and  was  content.  Ja.  Arbuckle  praises 
Ramsay  for  roaming  over  hill  and  dale  and  leaving  "carpet-ground"  to 
"tender-footed  beasts,"  and  for  choosing  to  subsist  on  his  native  stock 
while  other  poets  pilfered  fame  by  picking  the  locks  of  their  predecessors. 
— "Poems  of  Allan  Ramsay,"  I,  4-7. 


NEW  ATTITUDE  TOWARD  NATURE  75 

and  he  called  a  wide,  wild  garden  where  all  sorts  of  plants  grew 
in  wanton  confusion,  a  paradise  made  by  Nature  herself.  Even 
more  emphatic  is  his  Preface  to  "The  Evergreen"  in  1724.  In 
commendation  of  the  poems  he  had  collected  he  said, 

The  morning  rises  as  she  does  in  the  Scottish  horizon.     We  are 

not  carried  to  Greece  or  Italy  for  a  shade,  a  Stream,  or  a  Breeze 

I  find  not  Fault  with  these  Things,  as  they  are  in  Greece  or  Italy:  But 
with  a  Northern  Poet  for  fetching  his  Materials  from  these  Places,  in 
a  Poem,  of  which  his  own  Country  is  the  Scene;  as  our  Hymners  to 
tlie  Spring  and  Makers  of  Pastorals  frequently  do. 

Ramsay's  use  of  external  Nature  is  more  charming  than 
Gay's.  Scottish  poetry  had  never,  in  its  attitude  toward 
the  out-door  world,  passed  through  so  barren  and  arid  a 
period  as  that  of  the  pseudo-classicism  in  England,  nor  had 
the  Scottish  people  ever  lost  their  sense  of  the  beauty  and 
especially  of  the  mysterious  power  of  glens  and  braes  and 
burns.  So  Ramsay's  love  of  Nature  was  not  without  a  con- 
siderable background  in  tlie  way  of  national  poetic  spirit. 
He  spoke  out  in  fresh,  true  words  what  everybody  knew,  and 
described  scenes  familiar  to  every  eye.  There  are,  however, 
distinct  limitations  in  Ramsay's  knowledge  of  Nature  and 
his  power  of  sympathetic  representation.  His  recognition 
of  colors  is  fresh  and  charming,  but  elementary,  like  that 
shown  in  ballads.  "Caledonian  hills  are  green,"  "beneath 
a  green  shade,"  "the  simmer  green,"  "a  green  meadow," 
"my  native  green  plains,"  are  characteristic  phrases. 

When  com-riggs  wav'd  yellow,  and  blue  heather  bells,  ^ 
and 

To  pu'  the  rashes  green  with  roots  sae  white,* 
are  almost  the  only  instances  of  any  other  color  than  green. 
Such  phrases  as  "scented  meadows,"  "sweet  scented  rucks," 

1  "The  Gentle  Shepherd,"  ii,  4,  62. 

2  Ihid.,  50. 


76         NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

''new  blown  scents,"  "sweetest  briar,"  "blooming  fragrance," 
show  the  same  simple,  undifferentiated  recognition  of  odors. 
A  few  lines  as. 

How  fast  the  westlin  winds  sough  through  the  reeds,  ^ 
are  more  specific  representations  of  sounds,  but  we  do  not 
often  find  words  so  discriminating.  His  references  to  trees, 
flowers,  and  birds  are  of  the  same  general,  limited  sort. 
There  are  "bonny  haughs"  and  "bonny  woods;"  there  are 
rising  plants,  primroses,  daisies,  and  go  wans;  there  are 
"quiristers  on  high,"  the  merle,  the  mavis,  and  the  lark. 
But  there  is  no  subtle,  detailed  observation.  It  is  the  open, 
frank,  spontaneous  joy  of  a  child  happy  in  the  glad  world 
about  him.  Ramsay's  best  lines  are  descriptive  of  shining 
days,  clear  heavens,  dancing  streams.  "The  sun  shines 
sweetly,  a'  the  lift  looks  blue,"^  "ae  shining  day,"  "ae  clear 
morn  of  May,"  "the  morning  shines,"  "the  lift's  unclouded 
blue,"  "fair  simmer  mornings"  indicate  the  general  atmos- 
phere of  the  scenery  introduced.  Occasional  closer  touches 
are  seen  in  such  lines  as, 

I've  seen  with  shining  fair  the  morning  rise, 
And  soon  the  fleecy  clouds  mirk  a'  the  skies,^ 

and 

For  yet  the  sun  was  wading  thro'  the  mist.* 

Best  of  all  are  the  lines  about  streams; 

A  trotting  bumie  wimpUng  through  the  ground 
Its  channel  pebbles,  shining,  smooth  and  round,s 

A  little  fount 
Where  water  poplin  springs.*^ 

I've  seen  the  silver  spring  a  while  rin  clear 
And  soon  the  mossy  puddles  disappear,' 

I  "The  Gentle  Shepherd,"  ii,  4,  10. 

3  "To  Mr.  William  Starrat,"  1.  46.  s  Ibid.,  Prologue,  i,  2. 

3  "The  Gentle  Shepherd,"  iii,  3,  41.  ^  ibid.,  Prologue,  ii,  3. 

4  Ibid.,  i,  I,  137.  7  Ibid.,  iii,  3,  43. 


NEW  ATTITUDE  TOWARD  NATURE  77 

Between  twa  birks  out  o'er  a  little  lin 
The  water  fa's  and  makes  a  singan  din, 
A  pool  breast-deep,  beneath,  as  clear  as  glass, 
Kisses  with  easy  whirles  the  bord'ring  grass,' 

are  descriptions  almost  perfect  of  their  kind.  In  their  beauty 
and  freshness  they  show  that  the  eye  was  on  the  object.  Mr. 
Shairp  says  of  Habbie's  How,  "A  pool  in  a  burn  among  the 
Lowland  Hills  could  hardly  be  more  naturally  described," 
and  one  need  not  be  a  Scotchman  to  feel  sure  that  the  same 
is  true  of  the  minor  descriptive  touches. 

Though  Ramsay  was  brought  up  in  a  rugged  part  of 
Scotland,  he  seems  to  have  had  none  of  the  modern  feeling 
for  mountains.  But  he  speaks  of  "black,  heathery  moun- 
tains," of  "northern  mountains  clad  with  snow,"  of  "moun- 
tains clad  with  purple  bloom,"  and  of  hills  that  "smile  with 
purple  heather."     Once  he  exclaims. 

Look  up  to  Pentland's  tow'ring  top. 
Buried  beneath  great  wreaths  of  snaw, 
O'er  ilka  cleugh,  ilk  scar,  and  slap. 
As  high  as  any  Roman  wa,'* 

and  he  notes  that 

Speats  aft  roar  frae  mountains  heigh. ^ 
Such  passages,  though  they  show  no  love  for  the  mountains, 
are  yet  sufficiently  picturesque  and  exact  to  save  Ramsay 
from  the  imputation  of  never  having  seen  the  wild  country 
around  him.     To  the  ocean  he  gives  but  a  single  line. 
Along  wild  shores,  where  tumbling  billows  break. ^ 
It  is  interesting  to  note  that  in  Ramsay  as  in  Gay,  Nature 
is  made  subordinate  to  man,  in  the  sense  that  the  pictures 
from  Nature  are  nowhere  elaborated  or  dwelt  upon  ostensibly 

1  "The  Gentle  Shepherd,"  i,  2,  7. 

2  "An  Ode  to  the  Ph— ,"  1721,  st.  i. 

3  "Answer  to  the  Foregoing." 

4  "Prospect  of  Plenty." 


78         NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

for  their  own  sake.  The  main  interest  is  in  the  study  of  the 
characters. 

The  chief  contribution  of  Gay  and  Ramsay  to  the  growing 
love  of  Nature  in  poetry  had  to  do  with  the  natural  man  in 
natural  scenes,  rather  than  with  the  natural  scene  itself. 
Gay's  service  in  the  way  of  external  Nature  was  largely  the 
outcome  of  his  fidelity  to  the  fact.  Ramsay  did  more.  He 
not  only  gave  separate  pictures  both  beautiful  and  true,  but 
he  somehow  fused  them  with  the  human  elements  of  his 
pastoral  in  such  a  way  that  we  cannot  think  of  the  racy 
love-scenes  apart  from  their  fresh  and  lovely  surroundings. 

In  1725,  or  shortly  before,  were  wTitten  three  poems  on 
Winter.'  They  are  important  as  marking  the  first  real 
turning  from  the  softer  to  the  sterner  aspects  of  Nature. 
Dr.  Armstrong's  poem  was  inspired  by  a  winter  spent  among 
the  wild  romantic  scenes  about  the  River  Esk.  His  later 
poetry  is  not  important  so  far  as  the  use  of  Nature  is  con- 
cerned. He  became  a  great  admirer  of  Thomson  whose 
style  he  imitated  with  some  success,  but  he  shows  little  of 
Thomson's  sensitiveness  to  natural  beauty.  His  point  of 
view  is  that  of  the  physician  and  his  hatred  of  the  town  is 
based  on  his  objection  to  smoke  and  bad  air,^  while  his  sum- 
mons to  the  mountains  rests  on  the  value  of  exercise  and 
oxygen.3  One  of  the  most  effective  passages  is  his  apostrophe 
to  the  Liddal,  that  stream  ''  unknown  to  song,  where  he  played 
when  life  was  young."^     The  only  poem  on  which  we  need 

I  (a)    Dr.    Armstrong's    "Winter"    in    "Imitations   of    Shakespeare," 
Written  in  1725,  though  not  published  till  1770. 

(b)  Riccaltoun's  "A  Winter's  Day,"  written  before  1725,  published  in 
Savage's  "Miscellany"  in  1726,  and  in  "Gentleman's  Magazine,"  1740. 

(c)  Thomson's  "Winter,"  written  in  fragments  before  1725,  but  fused 
into  one  poem  at  Mallet's  suggestion  in  1726. 

3  "The  Art  of  Preserving  Health,"  i,  64-96. 

3  Ibid.,  i,  97-102;  iii,  39-52.  4  Ibid.,  iii,  71-96. 


NEW  ATTITUDE  TOWARD  NATURE  79 

to  dwell  is  the  "Winter,"  which,  though  often  unintelligible 
from  its  inflated  and  periphrastic  form  of  expression,  has 
yet  a  rugged  vigor  and  originality.  It  shows  occasionally  a 
homely  realism  suggestive  of  Crabbe,  as  in  the  description 
of  the  shivering  clown.  The  observation  is  most  of  it  first- 
hand. The  description  of  the  birds  that,  when  the  storm 
comes  on, 

With  domestic  tameness,  hop  and  flutter 

Within  the  roofs  of  persecuting  man, 

suggest  Thomson's  famous  red-breast.     Note  also  the  truth 

of  lines  such  as  these : 

when  the  murk  clouds 
Roll'd  up  in  heavy  wreaths,  low-bellying,  seem 
To  kiss  the  ground,  and  all  the  waste  of  snow 
Looks  blue  beneath  them; 

or  these: 

huge  sheets  of  loosen'd  ice 
Float  on  their  bosoms  to  the  deep,  and  jar 
And  clatter  as  they  pass; 

or,  to  strike  a  lovelier  note,  this  closing  hint  of  the  coming 
spring: 

Hark !  how  loud 
The  cuckoo  wakes  the  solitary  wood ! 

The  whole  poem  is  characterized  by  a  delight  in  the  wildest 
phases  of  winter  weather  and  it  shows  an  originality  of  con- 
ception, a  fulness  of  observation,  and  an  occasional  strength 
of  expression  remarkable  in  a  boy  not  yet  sixteen. 

Riccaltoun's  "A  Winter's  Day"  is  chiefly  remarkable 
because  its  author  was  a  friend  of  Thomson  in  his  boyhood 
and  doubtless  helped  to  cultivate  his  taste  for  Nature ;  because 
it  was  this  poem  that  suggested  Thomson's  descriptions  of 
winter;  and  because  winter  was  at  that  time  a  new  poetic 
theme.  The  "masterly  touches"  of  which  Thomson  speaks 
are  hard  to  find  unless  he  referred  merely  to  the  rough  truth 


8o  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

in  the  catalogue-like  summaries  of  natural  facts.  A  discus- 
sion of  Thomson's  "Winter"  will  come  more  naturally  in 
the  next  section. 

In  this  study  of  the  period  preceding  Thomson  we  have 
still  to  notice  the  indications  that  even  Pope  and  Addison 
were  not  left  untouched  by  the  new  spirit.  Such  indications, 
however,  show  but  faintly  in  their  poetry.  Addison's  "  Cur- 
sus  Glacialis "  (1699)  was  written  in  Latin,  and  the  few 
descriptive  lines  are  purely  conventional.  It  is  simply  an 
attempt  to  show  that  the  vigorous  sports  of  winter 
"  New  brace  the  nerves,  and  active  life  supply." 

Pope's  "Pastorals"  appeared  in  Tonson's  "Miscellany"  in 
1709.  They  were  enthusiastically  received,  and  apparently 
considered  a  charmingly  natural  presentation  of  country 
life.  Wycherley  called  Pope's  Muse  "a  sprightly  lass  of 
the  plains,"  and  said,  that  "in  her  modest  and  natural  dress 
she  outshone  all  Apollo's  court  ladies  in  their  more  artful, 
laboured,  and  costly  finery.'"  But  no  assemblage  of  such  con- 
temporary judgments  could  convince  a  modern  reader  that 
these  poems  show  any  real  traces  of  a  conception  of  the  outer 
world  unlike  that  of  the  classicists.  "Windsor  Forest"  (17 13) 
must  be  more  carefully  noted,  both  because  of  Wordsworth's 
implied  commendation'  in  his  reference  to  the  "passage  or- 
two"  that  contain  new  images  of  external  Nature,  but  chiefly 
because  it  is,  as  Courthope  observes,  the  first  "professed 
composition  on  local  scenery"  since  Denham,  and  Marvell.^ 
The  poem  was  written  at  two  different  times.  The  first  290 
lines  have  to  do  with  the  country.  They  were  written  in  1 704, 
at  about  the  same  time  as  the  "Pastorals."     Although  this 

I  Pope,  "Works,"  VI,  36,  37. 

a  Wordsworth,  "Essay  Supplementary  to  the  Preface,"  1815. 
3  Pope,  "Works,"  1,  322;   Denham,  "Cooper's  Hill;"   Marvell,  "  Upon 
the  Hill  and  Grove  at  Billbarrow,"  and  "Upon  Appleton  House." 


/ 


NEW  ATTITUDE  TOWARD  NATURE  8l 

part  of  the  poem  purported  to  be  the  outcome  of  daily  rides 
in  Windsor  Forest,  the  descriptions  are  so  vague  and  general 
that  most  of  them  would  fit  any  other  spot  as  well.  The 
lines  that  show  personal  observation  are  certainly  few. 
What  passages  Wordsworth  meant  can  only  be  surmised. 
He  may  have  had  in  mind  the  description  of  the  pheasants. 
But  more  exact  observation  is  shown  in  the  references  to  the 
doves  flocking  on  the  naked,  frosty  trees,  the  flight  of  the 
clamorous  lapwing,  the  trembling  of  trees  reflected  in  a 
stream,  and  the  purple  heather.^  That  Pope  had  some  desire 
to  conform  to  the  truth  in  representing  English  scenery  is 
indicated  by  his  doubt  as  to  the  advisability  of  referring  to 
the  vintage  in  describing  an  English  autumn.^  And  when 
he  revised  his  poems  he  omitted  "blushing,"  as  not  being 
applicable  to  violets,^  and  "wolves,"  as  not  belonging  to 
England.4  Warton  points  out,  also,  that  in  adapting  a 
Latin  description  of  the  Eurotas  to  serve  him  in  a  description 
of  the  Thames,  he  changed  "laurels"  to  "willow^s.s 

In  spite  of  these  indications  of  a  desire  to  be  true  to  Nature, 
it  is  to  Pope's  prose  rather  than  his  poetry  that  we  must  turn 
for  any  real  influence  in  favor  of  simplicity  and  truth  in  the 
presentation  of  natural  facts.  Though  in  reading  Pope's 
letters  every  statement  is  instinctively  taken  cum  grano  salts, 
because  of  his  known  insincerity  and  striving  after  effect,  we 
now  and  then  strike  passages  that  have  a  genuine  tone  of  pleas- 
ure in  such  mild  forms  of  Nature  as  his  physical  condition 

I  Veitch  in  "Feeling  for  Nature  in  Scottish  Poetr>-,"  II,  52,  credits  Thom- 
son with  being  the  first  poet  to  mention  purple  heather,  but  this  mention 
by  Pope  is  more  than  twenty  years  earlier. 

'  Pope,  ''Works,"  I,  346,  n.  3;  but  compare  "Autumn,"  1.  74. 

3  Ibid.,  I,  269,  n.  I. 

^Ibid.,  I,  283,  n.  3;  296,  n.  9. 

5  Ibid.,  I,  293;  cf.  Warton,  "Essay  on  Pope,"  I,  6. 


82  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

enabled  him  to  know.^  Addison's  '^  Essays  "  also  show  real 
delight  in  the  milder  forms  of  the  external  world.  "A  beau- 
tiful prospect,"  he  says,  "delights  the  soul  as  much  as  a 
demonstration."  "A  man  of  polite  imagination  often  feels 
a  greater  satisfaction  in  the  prospect  of  fields  and  meadows 
than  another  does  in  the  possession."^  We  note,  too,  his 
pleasure  in  wide  views,^  in  sunset,^  and  in  spring. ^  He  also 
deprecated  the  use  of  pagan  mythology  as  meaningless  in 
the  poetry  of  a  Christian  nation,^  and  he  heartily  praised 
Ambrose  Philips'  attempts  to  confine  English  pastorals 
to  English  scenes.^  And  finally,  both  Pope  and  Addison 
were  strong  influences  in  bringing  about  the  change  from 
the  formal  to  the  natural  school  of  gardening.^ 

SUMMARY 

In  a  statement  of  the  influences  in  this  period  that  make  for 
a  new  spirit  toward  Nature  we  must  not  forget  that  it  was  in 
reality  a  classical  period,  most  of  its  tendencies  and  all  of  its 

1  (a)  Description  of  moonshine  walk.  (This  letter,  perhaps  a  sincere 
expression  when  first  written  (17 13),  was  a  favorite  of  Pope's.  When  he 
published  his  "Letters"  he  made  an  amusing  blunder  by  transferring  this 
passage  to  a  letter  dated  February  10,  17 15,  at  which  time  the  park  where 
he  was  supposed  to  have  watched  the  moonshine  and  reflected  on  mor- 
tality, was  under  water  from  the  great  flood  of  Februar)'  9;    see  "Letters," 

I,  367-) 

(6)  "Pleasure  in  Birds,"  etc.,  I,  338. 

(c)  "Twickenham  in  Spring,"  IV,  72,  74. 

{d)  "Autumn,"  IV,  89. 

2  "Spectator,"  June  21,  1712  (No.  411). 

3  Ibid.,  June  23,  1712  (No.  412);  June  25,  1712  (No.  414). 

4  Ibid.,  June  23,  1712  (No.  412). 
s  Ibid.,  May  31  (No.  393). 

6  Ibid.,  October  30,  17 12  (No.  523). 

7  Ibid.,  October  30,  1712  (No.  523);  cf.  "Guardian," Nos.  22,  23,  28,  30, 

32,  40- 

8  See  further  discussion  under  "Gardening." 


NEW  ATTITUDE  TOWARD  NATURE  83 

best  work  being  classical.  The  indications  of  the  new  spirit 
are  fugitive,  occasional,  and  usually  unconscious.  With 
this  proviso,  we  may  sum  up  the  new  tendencies.  The 
change  from  the  formal  to  the  natural  school  of  gardening 
was  begun  in  this  period,  and  owed  much  to  Pope  and  Addi- 
son. The  artificial  shepherds  and  shepherdesses  of  the 
conventional  pastoral  were  supplanted  by  real  English  and 
Scottish  peasants,  as  in  the  work  of  Ambrose  Philips,  Gay, 
and  Ramsay.  There  was  a  growing  sense  of  the  beauty  and 
charm  of  the  external  world,  as  in  Lady  Winchilsea,  Parnell, 
and  Ramsay.  In  most  of  the  poets  mentioned  in  this  period 
there  was  a  new  quickness  and  minuteness  of  observation 
leading  to  a  wider  knowledge  of  natural  facts.  There  was 
appreciative  recognition  of  new  aspects  of  Nature,  as  night 
and  winter.  There  was  not  lacking  a  hint  of  the  romantic 
note  of  melancholy  which  later  became  one  characteristic 
of  the  poetry  of  Nature.  And  there  was  recognition  of  the 
spiritual  potencies  in  the  external  world.  There  was  also  an 
occasional  self-conscious  statement  of  new  principles,  as 
humorously  in  Gay,  seriously  in  Ramsay,  and  casually  in 
Pope  and  Addison. 

THE  POETS   BETWEEN    1 726   AND    173O 

James  Thomson  (i  700-1 748)  is  confessedly  the  most  im- 
portant figure  in  the  early  history  of  Romanticism.  He 
foreshadowed  the  new  spirit  in  various  ways,  as  in  his  strong 
love  of  liberty,  his  constant  plea  for  the  poor  as  against  the 
rich,  his  preference  for  blank  verse,  his  imitation  of  older 
models,  especially  Spenser,  and  in  his  tendency  toward  com- 
prehensive schemes;  but  his  chief  importance  is  in  his  attitude 
toward  external  Nature.  If,  however,  we  take  into  considera- 
tion all  his  work,  we  shall  find  in  more  than  three-fourths  of  it 
the  utmost  apparent  indifference  to  Nature.     In  the  five  trage- 


84  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

dies  written  between  1738  and  1748  there  is  no  hint  that  their 
author  knew  more  of  the  world  about  him  than  the  veriest  clas- 
sicist of  them  all.  In  ''Alfred"  (i74o),written  by  Thomson  and 
Mallet,  there  are  occasional  descriptive  touches,  but  these 
are  almost  too  slight  to  mention  when  we  think  what  effects 
might  have  been  produced  in  a  play  the  action  of  which  occurs 
on  a  beautiful  wooded  island  inhabited  only  by  a  few  peasants. 
In  the  other  tragedies  Nature  is  drawn  upon  merely  for  con- 
ventional similitudes,  as  in  ''Edward  and  Elenora"  (1739), 
where  five  of  the  eleven  similitudes  are  the  comparison  of  rage 
or  fierce  passions  to  tempests;  or  in  "Sophonisba,"  an  earlier 
play  (1728),  where  there  is  not  a  fresher  or  more  forceful 
comparison  than  that  of  an  army  to  a  torrent,  passion  to  a 
whirlwind,  the  hero  to  a  lion,  and  the  heroine  to  a  blooming 
morn.  In  the  3,300  lines  of  the  tedious  poem,  "Liberty" 
(1734-36),  not  more  than  fifty  refer  to  external  Nature,  and 
of  these  the  only  passages  that  suggest,  even  remotely,  the 
author  of  "The  Seasons"  are  the  descriptions  of  the  sullen 
land  of  Sarmatia'  and  the  shaggy  mountain  charms  of  the 
Swiss  Alps."  "The  Castle  of  Indolence,"  written  in  1733, 
is  the  only  one  of  the  poems  written  after  1730  that  indicates 
any  genuine  love  of  Nature.  The  charm  of  this  poem  for 
modem  readers  is  perhaps  largely  due  to  its  use  of  external 
Nature,  for,  though  there  is  little  of  the  rich,  elaborate  descrip- 
tion characteristic  of  "The  Seasons,"  what  there  is,  is  so 
exquisitely  appropriate  that  all  the  listless,  luxurious  life  of 
this  land  of  soft  delights  is  seen  through  a  romantic  and 
picturesque  setting  of  waving,  shadowy  woods,  sunny  glades, 
and  silver  streams.  Yet  a  closer  study  of  the  descriptive 
stanzas  shows  litde  more  than  a  musically  felicitous  combina- 
tion of  the  attributes  conventionally  recognized  as  belonging 

I  "Liberty,"  Part  3,  11.  514-26. 
a  Ibid.,  Part  4,  11.  348-62. 


NEW  ATTITUDE  TOWARD  NATURE  85 

to  a  pleasing  landscape.  The  only  lines  really  indicative 
of  a  love  of  Nature  such  as  the  classicists  had  not  known  are 
the  following  from  the  second  canto: 

I  care  not,  Fortune,  what  you  me  deny: 
You  can  not  rob  me  of  free  Nature's  grace; 
You  can  not  shut  the  windows  of  the  sky, 
Through  which  Aurora  shows  her  brightening  face; 
You  can  not  bar  my  constant  feet  to  trace 
The  woods  and  lawns,  by  living  stream,  at  eve.'' 

It  is  to  "The  Seasons"  (1726-30)  that  we  must  go  if  we  wish 
to  understand  Thomson's  work  as  a  poet  of  Nature.  A  brief 
analysis  of  the  study  of  external  Nature  in  these  poems  will 
serve  to  show  both  in  what  respects  Thomson's  work  was  the 
outcome  of  a  new  spirit,  and  in  what  respects  its  affiliations 
are  with  the  old. 

An  important  part  of  Thomson's  poetical  endowment 
was  his  quick  sensitiveness  to  the  sights  and  sounds  and  odors 
of  the  world  about  him.  He  looked  on  Nature  with  the  eye 
of  an  artist,  but  not  of  an  artist  in  black  and  white.  It  was 
not  form  but  color  that  attracted  him.  There  are  occasional 
descriptions,  as  of  the  garden  in  "Spring"^  and  of  the 
precious  stones  in  "  Summer, "^  where  the  lines  glow  like  a 
painter's  palette,  and  throughout  "The  Seasons"  there  is  a 
general  impression  of  rich  and  varied  coloring.  That  this  im- 
pression is  stronger  than  a  list  of  the  color  terms  used  would 
seem  to  justify  is  due  to  two  facts,  both  characteristic  of  Thom- 
son's work  in  general.  In  the  first  place  he  did  not  care  for 
nicely  discriminated  shades  or  delicate  tints.  He  loved  broad 
masses  of  strong,  clear  color.     He  dwells  with  ever  new 

I  "The  Castle  of  Indolence,"  canto  ii,  st.  3. 

a  "Spring,"  11.  529-55. 

3  "Summer,"  11.  140-59.  Suggested  probably  by  Mallet.  See  Letter, 
August  2,  1726:  "Your  hint  of  the  sapphire,  emerald,  ruby,  strikes  my 
imagination  with  a  pleasing  taste,  and  shall  not  be  neglected." 


86  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

delight  on  blue  as  seen  in  the  sky  or  reflected  in  water,  and  on 
green,  "smiling  Nature's  universal  robe."  In  the  second 
place  he  is  especially  rich  in  such  words  as  indicate  color  in 
general  without  specification  as  to  the  kind.  "The  flushing 
year,"  " every-coloured  glory,"  "the  boundless  blush  of 
spring,"  "  the  innumerous-coloured  scene  of  things,"  "  unnum- 
bered dyes,"  "hues  on  hues,"  are  typical  phrases.  Motion 
also  caught  his  eye  more  quickly  than  form.  The  dancing 
light  and  shade  in  a  forest  pathway,  the  waving  of  branches, 
the  flow  of  water,  the  rapid  flight  or  slow  march  of  clouds,  the 
golden,  shadowy  sweep  of  wind  over  ripened  grain,  count  for 
much  in  the  pleasurable  impression  made  upon  his  mind 
by  different  scenes. 

It  is  evident  that  Thomson  received  more  through  his  eye 
than  through  his  ear,  but  he  was  very  far  from  being  indiffer- 
ent to  the  sounds  of  Nature.  The  hum  of  bees,  the  low  of 
cattle,  the  bleating  of  sheep  are  frequently  noted.  The  songs 
of  birds,  while  often  represented  by  some  general  phase, 
as  "the  music  of  the  woods,"  or  "woodland  hymns,"  are  now 
and  then  more  minutely  specified,  as  in  the  fine  description 
of  the  "symphony  of  spring."^  There  is  also  effective 
representation  of  the  sounds  heard  in  storms,  as  in  the  sum- 
mer thunderstorm.^  The  most  frequent  sounds  are,  as  is 
inevitable  in  an  English  poet  whose  facts  comx  from  actual 
observation,  those  made  by  water,  as  the  plaint  of  purling 
rills,  the  thunder  of  impetuous  torrents,  or  the  growling  of 
frost-imprisoned  rivers. 

While  Thomson  was  not  the  first  poet  to  speak  of  the  odor 
of  the  bean-flower,  his  words  show  a  keen  appreciation  of  that 
perfume,  and  certainly  the  "smell  of  dairy"  was  a  country 
odor  first  poetically  noticed  by  him.     His  sensitiveness  to 

1  "Spring,"  11.  574-613- 

2  "Summer,"  11.  11 16-68. 


NEW  ATTITUDE  TOWARD  NATURE  87 

odors  is  not  especially  marked,  yet  it  is  safe  to  say  that  he  was 
in  this  respect  more  observant  than  his  immediate  predeces- 
sors or  contemporaries. 

In  reading  the  poetry  of  Nature  after  Dryden  in  historical 
sequence,  there  is,  in  coming  to  "The  Seasons,"  a  sudden 
sense  of  freedom  and  elation,  a  sense  of  having  at  last  come 
upon  a  poet  who  writes  freely  and  spontaneously  from  a 
large  personal  experience,  whose  facts  press  in  upon  him  even 
too  abundantly.  He  knows  many  kinds  of  Nature  and  under 
varying  aspects.  His  garden  picture,  though  somewhat  too 
much  in  the  floral  catalogue  style,  shows  how  well  he  knew 
the  cultivated  flowers  he  described,  and  he  speaks  with  no 
less  loving  minuteness  of  furze,  the  thorny  brake,  the  purple 
heather,  dewy  cowslips,  white  hawthorn,  and  lilies  of  the 
vale.  It  is  a  pleasure  to  see  how  much  he  knew  about  birds. 
He  describes  their  habits  with  remarkable  accuracy  and 
minuteness.  He  shows  their  tender  arts  in  courtship,^  their 
skill  in  nest-building,^  and  the  "pious  frauds"  whereby  they 
lure  away  the  would-be  trespasser.^  In  no  poetry  between 
Marvell  and  Thomson  do  we  find  birds  so  fully  described, 
and  Marvell  has  nothing  so  charming  and  sympathetic  as 
Thomson's  winter  red-breast.'^  Thomson's  scope  is  also 
wider  in  that  he  knew  the  birds  of  the  seashore^  as  well  as 
those  of  wood  and  meadow.  Equally  close  attention  is 
given  to  the  various  domestic  fowl.  ^The  peacock  had 
flaunted  his  painted  tail  through  poetry  for  a  hundred  years,  . 
and  is  now  for  the  first  time  outranked  as  an  object  of  inter- 
ested observation  by  the  hen,  the  duck,  and  the  turkey.^ 
The  frequent  descriptions  of  domestic  animals,  especially 

I  "Spring,"  11.  614-30.  3  Ibid.,  11.  690-701. 

=>  Ibid.,  11.  636-60.  4  "Winter,"  11.  245-56. 

5  "Spring,"  11.  21-25;  "Winter,"  11.  144-47. 
6"Spring,"ll.  77<:^85. 


\ 


88  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

the  sheep, ^  the  horse,^  and  the  ox,^  also  show  minute  knowl- 
edge such  as  could  not  have  been  gained  from  books.  It  is, 
moreover,  a  significant  fact  that  through  these  numerous 
and  varied  studies  there  runs  a  genuine  love  for  animals. 
Thomson  was,  at  least  in  poetic  theory,  a  vegetarian,  and 
he  vigorously  denounced  the  killing  of  animals  for  food  as 
conduct  worthy  only  of  wild  beasts.^  His  poetical  invectives 
against  hunting  are  as  vigorous  as  Cowper's.^  He  objects 
to  caging  birds,^  and  his  indignation  waxes  high  over  the 
bees  "robb'd  and  murder'd"  by  man's  tyranny.^  The  only 
unoffending  animal  that  escapes  Thomson's  wide  sympathy 
is  the  fish.^  The  skill  with  which  the  monarch  of  the  brook 
is  lured  from  his  dark  haunt  and  at  last  "gaily"  dragged  to 
land  is  described  with  a  gusto  in  curious  contrast  to  the  pity 
lavished  on  the  tortured  worm  that  may  have  served  for  bait.'' 
As  we  have  just  seen,  the  animals  that  Thomson  described 
were  those  that  any  country  lad  might  know  rather  than  those 
that  had  been  canonically  set  apart  for  poetical  service.  The 
same  independent  judgment  is  evident  in  his  study  of  other 
neglected  realms  in  the  world  of  Nature.  He  gloried  in  storms 
and  winter.  Though  he  now  and  then  falls  into  the  conven- 
tional phraseology,  and  speaks  of  winter  as  drear  and  awful, 
he  yet  in  the  same  breath  exclaims  that  he  finds  its  horrors 
congenial.  The  contrast  of  a  first  winter  in  London  turns 
his  mind  with  full  emphasis  to  the  days  of  his  youth  when  he 
wandered  with  unceasing  joy  through  virgin  snows,   and 

I  "Summer,"  11.  371-422. 

»  "Spring,"  11.  808-20;  "Summer,"  11.  506-15. 

3  "Spring,"  11.  362-71;  "Summer,"  11.  489-93. 

4  "Spring,"  11.  336-73- 

s  "Autumn,"  11.  360-457;  "Winter,"  11.  788-93. 

6  "Spring,"  11.  702-28.  »  "Spring,"  11.  394-442. 

7  "Autumn,"  11.  1172-1207.  9  Ibid.,  11.  189,  388. 


NEW  ATTITUDE  TOWARD  NATURE  89 

listened  to  the  roar  of  the  winds  and  the  bursting  torrent,  and 
watched  the  deep  tempest  brewing  in  the  grim  sky.  Such 
experiences  he  remembers  with  joy  for  they  "exalt  the  soul 
to  solemn  thought."'  Through  all  the  descriptive  portions 
of  the  "Winter"  there  is  a  vigorous,  manly  enthusiasm  as 
tonic  and  bracing  as  the  bright,  frosty  days  themselves. 
Thomson's  pleasure  in  the  sterner  phenomena  of  Nature  is 
further  shown  by  his  evident  delight  in  tracing  the  progress 
of  any  storm,  whether  the  thunder  storm  of  summer,^  the 
devastating  wind  and  rain  of  autumn,^  or  the  black  gloom 
of  a  winter  tempest.^  These  fierce  tempests  certainly  are 
of  more  comparative  importance  in  "The  Seasons"  than 
they  are  in  Nature.  Their  frequent  choice  may  be  in  part 
due  to  their  dramatic  qualities  of  rapidity  and  force.  The 
crashing  and  hurtling  of  the  elements  was  a  subject  not 
unsuited  to  Thomson's  splendid  but  ponderous  and  swelling 
style.  But  in  the  main  it  is  only  fair  to  suppose  that  he  wrote 
of  storms  well  because  he  had  many  times  watched  them 
with  an  interest  that  had  made  him  remember  them. 

With  many  other  aspects  of  Nature  was  Thomson  familiar. 
He  knew  much  of  the  sky  both  by  day  and  by  night.  His 
few  short  descriptions  of  the  starry  heavens  are  worth  more 
than  all  Young's  far-sought  epithets.^  One  phrase  concern- 
ing the  radiant  orbs 

That  more  than  deck,  that  animate  the  sky,*^ 
seems  a  conscious  turning  away  from  the  old  artificial  con- 
ception.    One  of  the  finest  moon-light  passages'  is  reminis- 
cent of  Milton  in  two  lines, 

1  "Winter,"  11.  1-14.  3  "Autumn,"  11.  311-48. 

2  "Summer,"  11.  1103-68.  4  "Winter,"  11.  72-201. 

5  See  as  illustrative,  "Winter,"  11.  127,  738-41. 

6  "Summer,"  1.  1704. 

7  "Autumn,"  11.  1088-1102. 


go  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

Now  through  the  passing  cloud  she  seems  to  stoop, 
Now  up  the  pure  cerulean  rides  subhme, 

but  the  close, 

The  whole  air  whitens  with  a  boundless  tide 
Of  silver  radiance,  trembling  round  the-world, 

is  Thomson's  own,  and  is  a  good  example  of  the  full  sweet 
harmony  that  marks  his  verse  at  its  best.  There  are  many 
passages  and  apparently  casual  phrases  indicative  of  the 
closeness  with  which  he  watched  clouds.'  The  doubling 
fogs  that  roll  around  the  hills  and  wrap  the  world  in  a  "  form- 
less gray  confusion"  through  which  the  shepherd  stalks 
gigantic  is  described  with  a  Wordsworthian  felicity  and 
precision.'' 

The  descriptions  referred  to  below  of  early  morning,^  of 
sunset,4  of  evening, ^  and  of  night^  may  be  perhaps  taken  as 
among  the  best  examples  of  their  sort  in  "  The  Seasons."  As 
a  whole  they  show  conclusively  from  what  long  intimacy  with 
Nature  Thomson  wrote.  The  very  freshness  of  morning 
breathes  from  the  sunrise  picture  in  "Summer"  and  the  litde 
picture  in  "Autumn"  is  more  delicately  suggestive  than  many 
a  more  pretentious  description  of  the  dawning  day.  The 
sunset  after  the  rain  in  "Spring"  is  one  of  the  best  examples 
of  Thomson's  power  to  paint  word  pictures.  It  would  be 
difhcult  for  any  canvas  to  present  a  scene  at  once  so  mellow 
and  radiant,  and  so  transfused  with  the  joy  of  a  renovated 
earth.  As  exquisite  in  their  way  are  the  descriptions  of  the 
slow  approach  of  "Sober  Evening"  withjier_circUng  shad- 

1  See  as   illustrative,  "Spring,"    11.   30-51,    139-41,    145-51.  398-444; 
"Winter,"  11.  54-57,  77-8o,  195-96,  202-3,  etc. 

2  "Autumn,"  11.  710-31;  of.  Wordsworth,  "Prelude,"  viii,  265. 

3  "Autumn,"  151-52;   "Summer,"  11.  47-66. 

4  "Spring,"  11.  189-202. 

5  "Summer,"  11.  1647-59.  ^  jbid.,  11.  1682-98. 


NEW  ATTITUDE  TOWARD  NATURE  91 

ows  and  the  softly  swelling  breeze  that  stirs  the  stream  and 
wood;  and  the  later  description  of  the  strange  uncertain 
mingling^fjight  and  darknessjn  a  summer  night  in  England. 
These  passages  and  others  that  might  be  quoted  show  to 
what  fine  issues  Thomson's  pen  was  sometimes  touched,  but 
it  cannot  be  denied  that  his  really  intimate  and  exact  knowl- 
edge of  Nature  and  her  ways  could  not  hold  all  his  descriptions 
subject  to  the  charm  of  simplicity  and  truth. 

As  further  illustrative  of  Thomson's  knowledge  of  all  that 
pertained  to  the  country  we  have  his  admirably  vivid  and 
detailed  accounts  of  the  homely  labors  of  a  farmer's  life,  as 
plowing,^  sowing,^  reaping,^  hay  making,-*  and  sheep  shear- 
ing. ^  Of  these  the  sheep  shearing  is  the  most  simply  charm- 
ing and  natural.  It  is  also  the  most  noteworthy,  because 
sheep  and  shepherds  had  long  been  the  very  substance  out  of 
which  pastorals  were  woven  so  that  in  such  descriptions  the 
contrast  between  the  new  and  the  old  way  of  looking  at  coun- 
try life  is  sharply  defined.  Thomson's  pastoral  queen  and 
shepherd  king  are  at  the  opposite  pole  from  the  sentimental, 
affected,  useless  nymphs  and  swains  who  had  before  posed 
as  the  guardians  of  English  sheep.  His  shepherds  are  sturdy 
fellows,  doing  honest  work  and  plenty  of  it,  and  as  such  they 
had  no  predecessors  in  English  classical  poetry.  The  sheep, 
too,  are  real  animals.  They  have  to  be  watched  with  a 
vigilance  of  which  no  flower-crowned  swain  playing  on  an 
oaten  pipe  would  be  capable.  And  they  must  be  washed 
and  sheared  and  branded.  In  winter  they  must  be  housed 
and  fed,  no  matter  what  the  dangers  on  the  dark,  stormy 
hills.  It  is  this  strong,  refreshing  air  of  reality  in  Thomson's 
poetry,  and  his  unfeigned  respect  and  admiration  for  the 

'  "Spring,"  11.  34-43- 

2  Ibid.,  11.  44-47.  4  "Summer,"  11.  352-70. 

3  "Autumn,"  11.  153-69.  5  Ibid.,  11.  371-442. 


92  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

actual  country  life  in  England  that  completed  the  work 
begun  by  the  ugly  satire  of  Swift  and  the  mock  pastorals  of 
Gay,  and  made  the  old,  conventional,  pseudo-classic  pastoral 
from  that  time  on  an  impossibility  in  English  poetry. 

The  phrase,  "disHke  of  boundaries,"  is  perhaps  not  very 
apt,  but  it  may  serve  to  describe  what  is  certainly  a  pervasive 
quality  of  Thomson's  work,  and  a  significant  quality,  for  if 
there  was  one  thing  more  pleasing  than  another  to  an  ortho- 
dox classicist  it  was  a  well-defined  limit.  Thomson  preferred 
the  blank  verse  to  the  couplet  because  the  unrhymed,  flowing 
lines  gave  a  certain  freedom.  There  is  an  air  of  abundance, 
of  even  undue  exuberance  about  much  of  his  work.  Even  his 
diction  presents  this  idea  of  lavishness.  There  is  a  surpris- 
ingly large  number  of  such  words  as  "  effulgent,"  "  refulgent," 
"effusion,"  ''diffusion,"  ''suffusion,"  "profusion,"  from  the 
roots  "  fundo"  and  "  fulgeo"  with  their  idea  of  a  liberal  pour- 
ing out.  "Luxuriant,"  "ample,"  "prodigal,"  "boundless," 
"unending,"  "ceaseless,"  "immense,"  "interminable,"  "im- 
measurable," "vast,"  "infinite,"  are  typical  words. 

Profusely  poured  around, 
Materials  infinite, 

Infinite  splendor  wide  investing  all, 

To  the  far  horizon  wide-diffused, 
■  "■  A  boundless  deep  immensity  of  shade, 

Night,  a  shade  immense,  magnificent  and  vast, 

are  typical  phrases.  In  one  short  description  the  birds  are 
"innumerous;"  they  are  "prodigal"  of  harmony;  their  joy 
overflows  in  music  "unconfined;"  the  song  of  the  linnets  is 
"  poured  out  profusely."  ^  In  another  short  passage  the  stores 
of  the  vale  are  "lavish,"  the  lily  is  "luxuriant"   and  grows 

I  "Spring,"  11.  589-608. 


NEW  ATTITUDE  TOWARD  NATURE  93 

in  fair  "profusion,"  the  flowers  are  "unnumbered,"  beauty 
is  "unbounded,"  and  bees  fly  in  "swarming  millions."' 
When  images  come  into  his  mind  it  is  by  the  ten  thousand. 
In  spring  the  country  is  "one  boundless  blush,"  "far  diffused 
around."  He  loves  the  "liberal  air,"  "lavish  fragrance," 
"full  luxuriance,"  "extensive  harvests,"  "immeasurable," 
or  "exhaustless"  stores,  "copious  exhalations."  All  is 
superlative,  exaggerated,  scornful  of  limits.  It  was  "the 
unbounded  scheme  of  things"  that  most  appealed  to  him. 

The  same  point  receives  illustration  in  his  sense  for  land- 
scape. He  rej(2)iced  in  a  wide  view.^  He  loved  to  seek  out 
some  proud  eminence  and  there  let  his  eye  wander  "  far  excur- 
sive," and  dwell  on  "boundless  prospects."  Such  scenes 
not  only  gave  him  a  chance  for  picturesque  enumerations 
without  any  especial  demand  for  minute  discrimination,  but 
they  satisfied  his  preference  for  grand,  general  effects. 

Closely  connected  with  the  sense  for  landscape  is  the  use 
of  geographical  romance,^  or  the  heightening  of  poetic  effect 
by  the  accumulation  of  sounding  geographical  names.^ 
The  finest  example  of  this  device  is  in  the  lines  descriptive 
of  the  thunder  re-echoed  among  the  mountains. ^  In  this 
passage  the  impression  of  sublimity  is  due  to  the  suggestions 
of  mysterious  elemental  forces  subtly  associated  with  such 
names  as  Carnarvon,  Penmaenmawr,  Snowdon,  Thule,  and 
Cheviot.^  This  mental  following  of  the  thunder  from  peak 
to  distant  peak,  this  endeavor  to  strengthen  the  impression 

1  "Spring,"  11.  494-509- 

2  "Spring,"  11.  107-13,  950-62;  "Summer,"  11.  1406-41. 

3  W.  D.  McClintock,  unpublished  notes. 

4  "Summer,"  11.  819-29;  "Autumn,"  11.  781-804;  cf.  Shairp,  "Poetic 
Interpretation  of  Nature,"  p.  191,  for  the  geographical  use  of  Nature  in 
Milton. 

5  "Summer,"  11.  1161-68. 

6  Cf.  Wordsworth,  "To  Joanna,"  11.  54-65. 


94  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

by  the  use  of  the  remote  and  the  unknown,  show  a  mind  set 
toward  romantic  rather  than  classical  ideals. 

A  further  indication  of  Thomson's  defiance  of  limits  is  his 
curiosity.  His  mind  goes  back  of  the  present  fact  and  rest- 
lessly strives  after  causes  and  origins.^  In  imagination  he 
seeks  to  penetrate  to  the  vast  eternal  springs  from  which 
Nature  refreshes  the  earth. "^  The  most  poetic  example  of 
this  questioning  spirit  is  in  his  address  to  the  winds  that  blow 
with  boisterous  sweep  to  swell  the  terrors  of  the  storm. 

In  what  far-distant  region  of  the  sky, 

Hush'd  in  deep  silence^  sleep  you  when  'tis  calm?^ 

The  classical  spirit  held  itself  to  useful  questions  that  could 
have  some  rational  answer.  It  is  the  romantic  spirit  that 
pushes  its  inquiries  into  the  realms  of  the  unknowable. 

Throughout  this  study  of  Thomson's  work  there  has  been 
an  implicit  recognition  of  his  strong  love  for  Nature.  This 
fact  receives  further  definite  confirmation  from  his  letters. 
It  is  interesting  to  note  that  his  early  life  was  almost  as  fortu- 
nate in  its  environment  as  Wordsworth's.  When  he  was  a 
year  old  his  father  moved  to  Southdean,  a  small  hamlet  near 
Jedborough.  Here  the  lad  remained  till  he  entered  the  uni- 
versity at  Edinburgh  at  fifteen, ^  and  here  he  apparently 
passed  most  of  his  vacations  till  he  went  to  London  at  twenty- 

1  "Winter,"  11.  714-16;  "Spring,"  11.  849-52. 

2  "Autumn,"  11.  773-76. 

3  "Winter,"  11.  116-17. 

4  In  1720  there  appeared  in  the  "Edinburgh  Miscellany,"  a  poem  en- 
titled, "On  a  Country  Life  by  a  Student  in  the  University."  The  poem  is 
interesting  as  being  Thomson's  first  poetical  treatment  of  the  theme  which 
he  was  afterward  to  adopt.  The  verse  is  in  somewhat  stiff  and  formal  heroic 
couplets,  and  the  poem  is  marked  by  classicisms.  But  there  are  lines  and 
phrases  suggestive  of  Thomson's  later  work  and  the  plan  and  general  tone 
are,  as  Sir  Harris  Nicholas  has  pointed  out,  strongly  suggestive  of  "The 
Seasons."     The  young  poet's  love  of  country  life  is  quite  clearly  genuine. 


NEW  ATTITUDE  TOWARD  NATURE  95 

five.  One  of  his  especial  friends  was  Dr.  Cranston  of  Ancrum 
whose  love  of  Nature  was  equal  to  his  own.  Thomson's 
letters  to  Dr.  Cranston,  though  somewhat  stilted  and  high- 
flown,  show  clearly  the  eagerness  with  which  they  had  together 
explored  the  picturesque  country  along  the  Tiviot  and  its 
tributary  streams,  the  Ale  and  the  Jed.  In  the  first  letter 
from  London,  under  the  date  April  3,  1725,  was  written, 
*^I  wish  you  joy  of  the  spring."  In  September  of  the  same 
year  Thomson  wrote  from  Barnet: 

Now  I  imagine  you  seized  with  a  fine  romantic  kind  of  melancholy 
on  the  fading  of  the  year;  now  I  figure  you  wandering,  philosophical 
and  pensive,  'midst  the  brown,  wither'd  groves,  while  the  leaves  rustle 
under  your  feet,  the  sun  gives  a  farewell  parting  gleam,  and  the  birds 

Stir  the  faint  note  and  but  attempt  to  sing. 

Then  again  when  the  heavens  wear  a  more  gloomy  aspect,  the 
winds  whistle,  and  the  waters  spout,  I  see  you  in  the  well-known  clough, 
beneath  the  solemn  arch  of  tall,  thick  embowering  trees,  listening  to  the 
amusing  lull  of  the  many  steep,  moss-grown  cascades,  while  deep, 
divine  contemplation,  the  genius  of  the  place,  prompts  each  swelHng 
awful  thought.  I  am  sure  you  would  not  resign  your  place  in  that  scene 
at  any  easy  rate.  None  ever  enjoyed  it  to  the  height  you  do,  and  you 
are  worthy  of  it.  There  I  walk  in  spirit  and  disport  in  its  beloved  gloom. 
This  country  I  am  in  is  not  very  entertaining;  no  variety  but  that  of 
woods,  and  them  we  have  in  abundance;  but  where  is  the  living  stream  ? 
the  airy  mountain  ?  or  the  hanging  rock  ?  with  twenty  other  things  that 
elegantly  please  the  lover  of  nature.     Nature  delights  me  in  every  fonn. 

Later  in  life  Thomson  was  "more  fat  than  bard  beseems," 
and  correspondingly  indolent,  and  his  biographers  give  the 
impression  that  no  beauty  of  the  world  about  him  could 
compete  with  the  charms  of  an  easy  chair.  But  his  letters 
still  bear  witness  to  a  love  of  Nature  as  real  if  not  as  active 
as  that  of  his  youth.  In  July,  1743,  he  wrote  to  Mr.  Lyttleton 
promising  to  spend  some  weeks  with  him  at  Hagley: 

As  this  will  fall  in  Autumn,  I  shall  like  it  the  better,  for  I  think  that 


96  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

season  of  the  year  the  most  pleasing  and  the  most  poetical.  The  spirits 
are  not  then  dissipated  with  the  gaiety  of  spring,  and  the  glaring  light 
of  summer,  but  composed  into  a  serious  and  tempered  joy.     The  year  is 

perfect The  muses,  whom  you  obligingly  say  I  shall  bring  with 

me,  I  shall  find  with  you— the  muses  of  the  great,  simple  country,  not 
the  Httle,  fine -lady  muses  of  Richmond  Hill. 

Again  four  or  five  years  later,  he  wrote  to  Paterson, 
"Retirement  and  nature  are  more  and  more  my  passion 

every  day."^ 

This  passion  for  Nature  finds  frequent  expression  in  the 
poems,  but  no  citation  of  specific  instances  can  be  so  convin- 
cing as  the  general  impression  of  unforced  personal  enthusi- 
asm made  upon  the  reader  of  "The  Seasons."  Moreover, 
Thomson's  conception  of  the  effect  of  Nature  on  man,  the 
next  topic,  may  be  fairly  counted  as  but  a  transcript  from  his 
own  experience,  and  therefore  as  further  illustrative  of  his 

love  for  Nature. 

In  "The  Seasons"  as  in  preceding  poetry  both  man  and 
Nature  have  a  place,  but  there  is  a  great  transfer  of  emphasis. 
Nature  had  been  ignored  or  counted  as  the  servant,  the  back- 
ground, the  accompaniment  of  man.  Now  the  human 
incidents  are  few  and  unimportant  and  are  used  chiefly  to 
lay  additional  stress  by  their  tone  on  the  spirit  characteristic 
of  each  season.  Nature  is  loved  and  studied  and  described 
purely  for  her  own  sake.  There  is  very  little  use  of  natural 
facts  as  similes  for  human  qualities,  and  there  is,  practically, 
no  use  of  pathetic  fallacy.  The  effect  of  Nature  on  the  man 
sensitive  to  her  high  ministration  is  represented  as  twofold. 

I  Cf.  also  remarks  in  Preface  to  second,  third,  and  fourth  editions  of 
"Winter":  "I  know  no  subject  more  elevating,  more  amusing;  more  ready 
to  awake  the  poetical  enthusiasm,  the  philosophical  reflection,  and  the 
moral  sentiment,  than  the  works  of  Nature.  Where  can  we  meet  with 
such  variety,  such  beauty,  such  magnificence  ?  All  that  enlarges  and  trans- 
ports the  soul  ?     What  more  inspiring  than  a  calm,  wide  survey  of  them  ?" 


NEW  ATTITUDE  TOWARD  NATURE  97 

In  the  first  place  and  chiefly,  she  storms  his  senses  with  her 
ravishing  deh'ghts.  She  gives  him  pleasures  of  the  most 
rich  and  varied  sort.  She  enchants  him  with  color  and  har- 
mony and  perfume.  These  pleasures  are,  however,  of  the 
eye  and  ear.  They  do  not  touch  the  deeper  joys  of  the  heart. 
Of  the  appeal  of  Nature  to  the  soul  of  man,  in  the  true  Words- 
worthian  sense,  Thomson  knew  little.  Yet  occasional  pas- 
sages indicate  that  he  had  received  from  Nature  gifts  higher 
than  that  of  mere  external,  sensuous  enjoyment.  He  attrib- 
utes to  Nature  in  at  least  a  partially  Wordsworthian  sense, 
the  power  of  soothing,  elevating,  and  instructing.  He  sings 
the  "infusive  force"  of  spring  on  man, 

When  heaven  and  earth  as  if  contending  vie 
To  raise  his  being,  and  serene  his  soul.^ 

It  is  his  delight  to  "meditate  the  book  of  Nature"  for  thence 
he  hopes  to  "learn  the  moral  song."^  At  the  soft  evening 
hour,  he 

lonely  loves 
To  seek  the  distant  hills,  and  there  converse 
With  nature,  there  to  harmonize  his  heart. 3 

Not  only  does  he  attend  to  Nature's  voice  from  month  to 
month,  and  watch  with  admiration  her  every  shape,  but  he 

Feels  all  her  sweet  emotions  at  his  heart.'*        \ 

While  these  and  a  few  other  similar  passages  would  hardly 
be  remarked  in  the  poetry  of  Nature  after  Wordsworth, 
they  are  of  great  historical  importance  because  they  show 
the  early  beginning  of  that  spirit  which  received  its  final 
and  perfect  expression  seventy  years  later  in  "  The  Lyrical 
Ballads." 

X  "Spring,"  11.  868-74. 

a  "Autumn,"  11.  670-72.    Cf.  Wordsworth,  "The  Tables  Turned,"  st.  6. 

3  "Summer,"  11.  1380-82.  4  "Autumn,"  1.  1309. 


98  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

Thomson's  two  dominant  conceptions  in  his  thought  of 
God  in  Nature  wereas  the  almighty  Creator  and  the  ever- 
active~RLuIer;  The  whole  tenor  of  his  poems  goes  to  show 
tharhr"saw  in  Nature  not  God  himself  but  God's  hand. 
Even  his  invocations  tg_Nature,  animate  and  inanimate,  to 
praise  God  in  one  general  song  of  adoration,  are  but  highly 
emotionaland  figurative  statements  of  the  conception  that 
God  is  not  all,  but  Lord  of  all.  Now  and  then,  however,  in 
the  midst  of  the  old  ideas  there  comes  the  breath  of  a  new 
thought.  In  one  line  we  find  the  cold,  conventional  idea; 
in  the  next,  an  intimation  of  divine  immanence.  God's 
/  beauty  walks  forth  in  the  spring.  His  spirit  breathes  in  the 
[  gales.  The  seasons  "are  but  the  varied  God."  God  is  the 
Universal  Soul  of  Heaven  and  earth.  He  is  the  Essential 
Presence  in  all  Nature. '  Such  sentences  as  these,  whether 
uttered  consciously,  or  half  unconsciously  under  the  influence 
of  poetic  excitement,  clearly  prefigure  the  modern  conception 
of  the  union  and  inter-penetration  of  the  physical  and  spiritual 

worlds. 

Of  the  two  general  points  to  be  kept  in  view  in  the  study 
of  Thomson  as  a  poet  of  Nature  the  second  was  a  consideration 
of  his  affiHations  with  the  classical  spirit.  It  is  surprising 
to  observe  in  how  few  respects  such  affiliations  can  be  justly 
{  predicated.  There  are  occasional  references  to  his  Doric 
(  reed,  and  frequent  invocations  to  his  muse.  As  preliminary 
justification  of  his  choice  of  themes  are  quotations  from  Virgil 
and  Horace.  The  authority  of  the  "Rural  Maro"  and  the 
example  of  Cincinnatus  lend  added  dignity  to  the  English 
plow.  Personifications  of  the  conventional  type  often  appear. 
There  is  one  purely  didactic  description  of  the  cure  for  a  pest 
of  insects,  and  another  description  of  the  method  by  which 

I  Compare  Pope's  rhetorical  statement  of  the  same  speculative  con- 
ception. 


NEW  ATTITUDE  TOWARD  NATURE  99 

bees  are  robbed  of  their  honey,  that  are  evidently  framed  on 
Latin  models.  Nor  do  we  miss  the  ever-recurring  advice 
to  read  the  page  of  the  Mantuan  swain  beneath  a  spread- 
ing tree  on  a  warm  noon. 

We  also  find  that  toward  mountains  and  the  sea  Thomson 
held  almost  the  traditional  attitude.  His  nearness  to  the 
coast  and  his  knowledge  of  shore  birds  show  that  he  could  not 
have  been  entirely  ignorant  of  the  ocean,  but  it  apparently 
made  little  impression  on  him,  for  he  seldom  mentions  it 
even  casually,  and  but  once  with  any  emphasis.  It  is  then 
one  of  the  elements  of  a  wild,  fierce  storm  that  sweeps  the 
coast.  A  few  of  his  epithets  for  mountains,  as  "keen-air'd" 
and  "  forest-rustling,"  are  new  though  not  especially  felicitous, 
and  he  often  mentions  mountains  by  name,  or  as  bounding 
some  distant  prospect.  But  in  general  his  conception  and  his 
phraseology  are  those  of  his  contemporaries.  He  speaks  of 
the  Alps  as  ''dreadful,"  as  "horrid,  vast,  sublime,"  and  again 
as  "horrid  mountains."  There  is  nowhere  any  evidence  of 
the  modern  feeling  toward  mountains,  though  there  are 
frequent  expressions  of  appreciative  love  for  green  hills. 

The  point  in  which  Thomson  shows  strongest  traces  of  the 
old  influence  is  his  diction.  He  often  has  the  new  thought 
before  he  has  found  the  appropriate  dress  for  it.  Birds  are 
still  the  "plumy"  or  "feathery  people,"  and  fish  are  the 
"finny  race."  "Shaggy"  and  "nodding"  are  used  of  moun- 
tains and  rocks  and  forests,  and  "deformed"  and  "inverted" 
of  winter,  in  true  classical  fashion.  "Maze"  is  one  of  his 
most  frequent  words.  "Horrid"  still  holds  a  useful  place. 
"Amusing"  is  five  times  applied  to  the  charms  of  some 
landscape.  Leaves  are  the  "honours"  of  trees,  paths  are 
"erroneous,"  caverns  "sweat,"  and  all  sorts  of  things  are 
"innumerous."  He  also  makes  large  use  of  Latinized  words 
such  as    "turgent,"    "bibulous,"    ''relucent,"    "luculent," 


lOO  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

"irriguous,"  "gelid,"  "ovarious,"  "incult,"  "concactive," 
"hyperborean."  These  words  can  hardly  be  said  to  belong 
to  any  received  poetic  diction.  They  are  rather  a  mannerism 
of  Thomson's  style,  and  an  outgrowth  of  his  delight  in 
swelling,  sounding  phrases. 

From  this  summary  we  at  once  perceive  how  few  and 
comparatively  unimportant  were  the  characteristics  held  in 
common  by  Thomson  and  the  classicists  in  their  treatment 
of  external  Nature. 

This  study  of  "The  Seasons"  shows  that  so  far  as  intrinsic 
worth  is  concerned  the  poems  are  marked  by  a  strange  min- 
gling of  merits  and  defects,  but  that,  considered  in  their  his- 
torical place  in  the  development  of  the  poetry  of  Nature,  their 
importance  and  striking  originality  can  hardly  be  overstated. 
Though  Thomson  talked  the  language  of  his  day,  his 
thought  was  a  new  one.  He  taught  clearly,  though  without 
emphasis,  the  power  of  Nature  to  quiet  the  passions  and 
elevate  the  mind  of  man,  and  he  intimated  a  deeper  thought 
of  divine-immanenGG-in  the  phenomena  of  Nature.  But  his 
great  service  to  the  men  of  his  day  was  that  he  shut  up  their 
books,  led  them  out  of  their  parks,  and  taught  them  to  look 
on  Nature  with  enthusiasm.  This  service  is  of  the  greater 
historical  value  because  it  was  so  well  adapted  to  the  times. 
To  begin  with,  it  was  a  necessary  first  step.  People  cannot 
love  what  they  do  not  know.  Lead  them  to  Nature,  teach 
them  to  observe  with  amazement  and  delight,  and  the  other 
steps  follow  in  due  course  in  accordance  with  the  power  of 
each  soul  to  receive  the  deeper  influences  of  Nature.  In  the 
second  place,  men  were  just  ready  to  take  this  first  decisive 
step  away  from  the  artificial  to  the  natural.  The  work  of 
the  poets  who  immediately  preceded  Thomson  had  been  too 
slight  and  fragmentary  to  count  for  much  in  the  way  of  influ- 
ence, yet  they  were  most  clear  indications  of  a  tendency,  a 


/ 


NEW  ATTITUDE  TOWARD  NATURE  loi 

silent  preparation  of  the  general  poetic  mind,  for  such  work 
as  Thomson's.  He  was  at  once  and  easily  understood 
because,  while  his  poems  in  their  spontaneous  freshness  and 
charm,  their  rich,  easy  fulness  of  description,  their  minute 
observation,  their  sweep  of  view,  their  unforced  enthusiasm, 
must  have  come  as  a  revelation,  it  was  a  revelation  in  no 
sense  defiant  or  iconoclastic.  In  the  main  it  was  a  revelation 
of  new  delights,  not  of  disturbing  theories,  or  vexing  prob- 
lems. A  touch  more  of  subtlety,  of  vision,  of  mystery,  of 
the  faculty  divine,  and  Thomson  might  have  waited  for  recog- 
nition as  Wordsworth  did.^ 

John  Dyer's  (i 700-1758)  more  ambitious  poems,  ''The 
Ruins  of  Rome"  (1740)  and  "The  Fleece"  (1757),  belong  to  a 
much  later  period  than  the  present.  Of  these  the  first  may  be 
passed  over  as  containing  hardly  a  touch  of  Nature.  The  sec- 
ond is  a  long  didactic  poem  showing  much  technical  knowl- 
edge of  sheep-raising,  weaving,  dyeing,  and  home  and  foreign 
trade.  It  has  frequent  panegyrics  of  liberty  and  simplicity. 
It  abounds  with  geographical  details,  and  is  notable  as  having 
so  many  full  and  often  exact  descriptive  references  to  the 
rivers  of  Great  Britain.  The  Avon,  the  Severn,  the  Thames, 
the  Towy,  the  Vaga,  the  Ryddol,  the  Ystwith,  the  Clevedoc, 
the  Lune,  the  Coker,  the  Ouze,  and  the  Usk  are  chief  among 
these.  He  is  apparently  always  conscious  of  the  rivers,  rills, 
streams,  or  waterfalls  in  any  landscape.  But  in  general  the 
poem  is  conventional  in  diction,^  in  the  choice  of  similitudes, 
and  in  the  occasional  descriptions.     Its  use  of  geographical 

1  Since  the  publication  of  this  study  of  Thomson  I  have  read  with 
much  interest  Leon  Morel's  "J^^^^s  Thomson:  Sa  vie  et  ses  ceuvres,"  1895. 
Chaps,  ill  and  iv  of  Part  II  deal  fully  with  Thomson's  attitude  toward 
external  Nature  and  with  his  technical  excellences  as  a  descriptive  poet. 

2  Dyer  uses  almost  as  many  words  ending  in  "y"  as  Ambrose  Philips. 
"Stenchy,"  "towery,"  "framy,"  "sleeky,"  "thready,"  "cropsy,"  "spiry," 
are  illustrative. 


102  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

details,   though   sometimes  suggestive  and  stimulating,   as 

in  the  lines, 

Tempestuous  regions,  Danvent's  naked  peaks, 
Snowden  and  blue  Plynlymmon  and  the  wide 
Aerial  sides  of  Cader-yddris  huge,^ 

is  more  often  simply  wearisome.  It  is  true  of  Dyer,  as  it  was 
of  Thomson,  that  his  really  excellent  poetry  of  Nature  was 
written  when  he  was  fresh  from  long  and  familiar  knowledge 
of  Nature  in  her  wilder  forms,  and  that  travel  and  contact 
with  men  served  to  dull  the  power  of  these  early  experiences. 
"Grongar  Hill"  and  "The  Country  Walk"  were  published 
the  same  year  as  Thomson's  "Summer,"  and  were  doubtless 
written  the  year  before.  They  could  hardly  have  been  a 
result  of  the  impetus  given  by  Thomson  to  the  study  of 
Nature.  They  are  rather  an  original  and  independent  con- 
tribution toward  the  same  end.  They  were  the  expression 
of  personal  experience,  and  the  direct  outcome  of  native 
taste  and  singularly  fortunate  environment.  Dyer's  life 
before  his  school  days  at  Westminster  was  spent  in  the  wild 
and  romantic  country  in  Carmarthenshire,  and  during  the 
years  immediately  preceding  the  publication  of  these  two 
poems  he  was  wandering  through  other  parts  of  South  Wales 
as  an  "  itinerant  painter."  His  previous  study  with  Richard- 
son had  helped  to  develop  that  artistic  sensitiveness  to  exter- 
nal impressions  so  apparent  in  his  early  work.  He  notes 
the  colors  and  shapes  of  the  trees  grouped  below  him,  the 
gloomy  pine  and  sable  yew,  the  blue  poplar,  the  yellow  beech, 
the  fir  with  its  slender,  tapering  trunk,  the  sturdy  oak  with  its 
broad-spread  boughs.  The  changing  horizon  line  as  he 
climbs  the  hill,  the  long  level  lines  of  the  lawn,  the  various 
movements  of  rivers  running  swift  or  slow,  through  sun  and 
shade,  the  streaks  of  meadow,  the  close,  small  lines  of  distant 

I  "The  Fleece,"  i,  193. 


NEW  ATTITUDE  TOWARD  NATURE  103 

hedges,  the  curhng  spires  of  smoke,  are  observations  that 
show  the  trained  eye.^  His  colors  seem  to  be  rather  carefully 
discriminated.  Yellow  receives  unusual  emphasis.  The 
linnet's  yellow  plumage,  the  yellow  foliage  of  the  beech,  the 
mountain-tops  shining  yellow  in  the  sun,  and  even  the  "  yel- 
low barn"  catch  his  eye.  This  preference  for  yellow  charac- 
terizes his  later  work.  He  speaks  of  "yellow  corn,"  "yellow 
tillages,"  "yellowing  plains,"  and  the  "yellow  Tiber."  He 
also  hked  the  words  "golden"  and  "sunny."  Purple  is 
applied  to  evening  and  to  the  groves  at  evening,  and  seems 
to  be  used  with  some  real  sense  of  the  modern  specific  meaning 
of  the  word.  In  later  work  the  color  purple  became  almost 
a  stock  epithet  with  him; 

Purple  Eve 
Stretches  her  shadows,^ 

When  many-colour'd  Evening  sinks  behind 
The  purple  woods  and  hills,^ 

The  purple  skirts  of  flying  day,^ 

When  evening  mild 
Purples  the  valleys, s 

Wide  abroad 
Expands  the  purple  deep,"^ 

are  typical  phrases.  He  also  notices  the  "  thousand  flaming 
flowers"  in  the  fields,  the  silver  and  gold  of  the  morning 
clouds,  the  shining  of  lakes,  the  evening  colors  reflected  in 
slow  streams,  and  the  soft  fair  hues  of  distant  mountain 

I  In  "Observations  on  the  River  Wye,"  by  William  Gilpin,  pp.  103-8, 
Dyer's  "Grongar  Hill"  is,  however,  criticized  for  not  accurately  representing 
distance.  The  grove  must  be  distant  if  it  can  be  rightfully  called  purple, 
but  the  castle  beyond  it  "is  touched  with  all  the  strength  of  a  foreground; 
you  see  the  very  ivy  creeping  upon  the  walls." 

3  "The  Fleece,"  i,  577. 

3  Ibid.,  ii,  55.  4  Ibid.,  310.  5  Ibid.,  518.  6  Ibid.,  241. 


I04  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

summits.  He  delights  in  the  sounds  of  Nature,  especially 
in  the  songs  of  birds.  Not  for  many  years  after  Dyer  is  there 
so  effective  a  bit  of  bird-song  poetry  as  the  closing  lines  of 
"  Grongar  Hill."  Nor  is  he  indifferent  to  odors,  for  he  notes 
the  perfumed  breeze  from  the  valley,  the  fragrant  brakes, 
and  the  sweet-smelling  honeysuckle.  It  is  worthy  of  note 
that  in  these  two  short  poems  nearly  a  hundred  natural  facts 
are  mentioned. 

In  this  wide  observation  Dyer  includes  some  features  not 
hitherto  counted  as  parts  of  a  poetic  landscape.  The  "  windy 
summit  wild  and  high,"  naked  rocks,  and  barren  ground,  are 
mingled  with  the  softer  details,  and 

Each  gives  each  a  double  charm. 

He  nowhere  dwells  upon  mountains  in  his  descriptions, 
but  the  slight  touches  here  and  there  and  the  general  tone  of 
the  poems  are  sufficient  to  show  his  great  delight  in  mountain 
scenery.  He  represents  himself  as  climbing  slowly  and  look- 
ing back  often  so  as  not  to  miss  a  single  phase  of  the  view 
unfolding  before  him.  Once  on  the  top  he  gazes  out  over 
the  lovely  prospect  and  exclaims. 

Now,  even  now,  my  joys  run  high 
As  on  the  mountain  turf  I  lie. 

In  "The  Fleece"  are  further  indications  of  this  love  of 

mountains  and  wide  views.     The  passage  beginning 

Huge  Breaden's  stony  summit  once  I  climbed^ 

is  typical. 

Those  slow-climbing  wilds,  that  lead  the  step 

Insensibly  to  Dover's  windy  cliff, 

Tremendous  height!^ 
and 

By  the  blue  steeps  of  distant  ^Malvern  walled, 

Solemnly  vast.^ 
have  something  of  the  modern  touch. 

1  "The  Fleece,"  i,  555.  «  Ibid.,  59.  3  Ibid.,  41. 


NEW  ATTITUDE  TOWARD  NATURE  105 

The  prevailing  interest  in  these  poems  is  in  Nature,  but 
there  are  one  or  two  charming  pictures  of  homely  life.  The 
old  man's  hut  and  garden  on  the  edge  of  the  wood,  and  the 
barnyard  scene  are  as  attractive  as  they  are  realistic.  And 
surely  the  tattered  old  man  digging  up  cabbage  in  the  shade 
might  have  been  expected  to  wait  at  least  for  Crabbe  or  Words- 
worth to  introduce  him  into  the  select  company  of  the  Muses. 

The  same  may  be  said  of  the  tramp  asleep  by  the  roadside.^ 

■» 

In  any  tabulation  Dyer's  use  of  Nature  would  seem  to  be 
much  more  abundant  than  it  is  for  in  ''The  Fleece"  he  of 
necessity  used  a  large  number  of  geographical  details  merely 
to  mark  out  localities  and  with  no  more  literary  quality  than 
there  w^ould  be  on  a  map.  His  chief  use  of  Nature  is  two- 
fold, and  is  best  seen  in  the  short  poems,  "Grongar  Hill" 
and  "The  Country  Walk."  He  describes  a  landscape  with 
loving  minuteness  for  its  own  sake,  and  he  regards  it  as  the 
occasion  for  a  strain  of  half-melancholy  reflection  on  human 
life.  This  gentle,  quaintly  precise  moralizing  is  unlike  the 
typical  classical  didacticism  in  that  it  seems  to  spring  inevi- 
tably from  the  effect  of  natural  objects  on  the  poet's  mind, 
instead  of  being  itself  a  main  thing  and  laboriously  illustrated 
by  such  natural  facts  as  came  to  hand. 

The  entire  impression  made  by  the  two  poems  is  that  they 
were  written  by  one  who  knew  Nature  better  than  books. 
The  negative  as  well  as  the  positive  qualities  of  the  poem 
show  this.  There  are  almost  no  conventional  phrases.  "^  Of 
the  personified  abstract  qualities,  two  at  least,  Pleasure  and 
Quiet,  are  so  imaginatively  conceived  as  not  to  belong  to  the 

I  "The  Country  Walk,"  U.  86-99;  33-40. 

'He  calls  the  sun  "Phoebus"  and  "Apollo;"  he  occasionally  uses 
such  words  as  "swain,"  "bloomy,"  "sylvan,"  "verdant,"  "flowery;"  and 
he  speaks  of  "the  wanton  zephyr;"  and  he  refers  to  a  grove  as  the  "haunt 
of  Phyllis." 


io6  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

category  of  cold  classical  personifications.  The  only  classical 
allusion  is  significant  as  being  to  the  "fair  Castalian  springs" 
"  deserted  now  "  by  all  but  "  slavish  hinds." ^  But  the  poems 
show  something  more  than  first-hand  as  opposed  to  bookish 
knowledge  of  Nature.  Their  author  evidently  loved  to  linger 
over  the  charms  of  Nature  in  solitude,  to  let  them  sink  into 
his  mind  and  heart.  There  is  a  power  of  quiet  contemplation, 
of  "wise  passiveness,"  such  as  Thomson  never  knew.  The 
closing  lines  of  "Grongar  Hill," 

Be  full,  ye  courts;  be  great  who  will; 
Search  for  Peace  with  all  your  skill: 
Open  wide  the  lofty  door, 
Seek  her  on  the  marble  floor. 
In  vain  you  search,  she  is  not  there; 
In  vain  ye  search  the  domes  of  care ! 
Grass  and  flowers  Quiet  treads. 
On  the  meads,  and  mountain  heads. 
Along  with  Pleasure,  close-ally'd. 
Ever  by  each  other's  side: 
And  often,  by  the  murmuring  rill. 
Hears  the  thrush,  while  all  is  still, 
Within  the  groves  of  Grongar  Hill, 

show  a  wonderfully  true  and  delicate  apprehension  of  the 
spiritual  influences  that  speak  through  Nature's  forms.  It 
is  putting  into  plainer  words  what  was  the  underlying  con- 
ception in  Parnell's  "Hymn  to  Contentment." 

As  has  been  observed,  Dyer  speedily  left  his  first  love  and 
devoted  himself  to  laborious,  didactic  blank  verse.  We  can- 
not find  that  his  two  short  poems  attracted  much  attention 
at  the  time.  Thomson's  glory  blazed  forth  so  effulgently 
that  lesser  lights  were  but  dimly  seen.  Now,  however,  as 
we  go  from  poet  to  poet  of  the  period,  we  cannot  fail  to  be 
mpressed  by  the  unusual  sincerity,  simplicity,  and  truth  with 

I  "The  Country  Walk,"  II.  58-63. 


NEW  ATTITUDE  TOWARD  NATURE  107 

which  Dyer  wrote  of  Nature.  And  we  feel  that  while  he 
lacked  Thomson's  power  and  fertility,  he  was  nearly  equal 
to  him  in  originality,  and  superior  to  him  in  delicacy. 
/f)avid  Mallet's  (1705-65)  chief  poems  in  which  there  is  use 
)f  external  Nature  are  "A  Fragment,"  "The  Excursion,"  and 
"Amyntor  and  Theodora."  The  undated  "A  Fragment" 
reads  like  a  poetical  exercise  in  the  style  of  Dyer's  "The 
Country  Walk"  and  "Grongar  Hill."  The  octosyllabic 
verse,  the  general  plan  of  a  walk  at  different  times  of  day,  the 
ascent  of  a  hill  for  the  view,  the  pleasure  in  the  solitude  of 
Nature,  the  moralizing  invocations  to  Health  and  Freedom, 
are  all  suggestive  of  Dyer.  The  description  of  the  noontide 
woodland  retreat,  of  the  forest  sounds,  and  of  the  poet's 
revery  are  like  passages  in  "The  Country  Walk,"  while  both 
the  spirit  and  form  of  some  passages  in  "Grongar  Hill"  are 
paralleled  by  such  lines  as, 

On  the  brow  of  mountain  high 
In  silence  feasting  ear  and  eye,^ 

or, 

And  then  at  utmost  stretch  of  eye 
A  mountain  fades  into  the  sky; 
While  winding  round,  diffused  and  deep, 
A  river  rolls  with  sounding  sweep.2 

"The  Excursion"  and  "Amyntor  and  Theodora"  are 
interesting  because  of  their  relation  to  the  work  of  Thomson. 
Thomson  and  Mallet  were  students  together  at  Edinburgh, 
and  there  was  evidently  a  close  literary  comradeship  between 
them,  which  lasted  through  the  first  years  of  their  London 
life.  During  the  summer  of  1726  they  were  both  engaged 
in  literary  work,  the  result  of  which  was,  on  Thomson's  part, 
"Summer,"  and  on  Mallet's,  about  300  lines  of  the  first 

iCf.  "GrongarHilV'l.  137.  ) 

a  Cf.  "The  Country  Walk,"  1.  120. 


io8  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

canto  of  "The  Excursion.'"  There  was  a  vigorous  inter- 
change of  letters  concerning  the  two  poems,  each  author  giv- 
ing advice  and  criticism  on  the  passages  sent  him  by  the  other. ^ 
A  comparison  of  the  poems  shows  numerous  resemblances. 
As  an  illustration  we  may  take  the  sunrise  with  which  each 
poem  opens.  The  order  of  occurrences  is  the  same  in  each — 
night,  faint  gleams  in  the  east,  breaking  clouds,  rising  mists, 
retreat  of  wild  animals,  song  of  birds,  work  of  shepherds, 
full  rising  of  sun,  praise  to  God,  reflections  on  the  inspiration 
to  be  gained  from  Nature.  There  are  also  many  curious 
verbal  similarities.  In  Thomson  the  meek-eyed  Morn, 
mother  of  dews,  comes  faint-gleaming  in  the  east  to  destroy 
night's  doubtful  empire,  and  before  the  lustre  of  her  face  the 
clouds  break  white  away.  In  Mallet  sacred  Morn  pale- 
glimmering  comes  with  dewy  radiance  through  the  doubtful 
twilight  and  spreads  a  whitening  lustre  over  the  sky.  In 
Thomson  the  powerful  King  of  Day  looks  in  boundless  maj- 
esty abroad.  In  Mallet  the  King  of  Glory  looks  abroad  on 
Nature.  These  are  but  suggestions  of  the  many  unmistakable 
but  baffling  and  intricately  interwoven  similarities  in  the 
two  poems.  If  we  had  but  these  two  poems  it  would  be, 
perhaps,  impossible  to  say  which  poet  exerted  the  stronger 
influence.  Thomson's  deference  to  Mallet's  judgment  is 
evident.  "Winter"  was  submitted  to  him  for  correction,^ 
and  the  splendid  passage  on  precious  stones  in  "Summer" 
was  an  addition  proposed  by  him.^  Thomson  also  greatly 
admired  Mallet's  work.s  Thomson's  work,  on  the  other 
hand,  bears  the  impress  of  a  genuine  enthusiasm  and  a  many- 

I  Thomson  to  Mallet,  September,  1726. 
»  Thomson's  letters  to  Mallet  in  1726. 

3  Letter  to  Mallet,  July  10,  1725. 

4  Ibid.,  August  2,  1726. 

5  Letters  to  Mallet,  June  13  and  July  10,  1726. 


NEW  ATTITUDE  TOWARD  NATURE  109 

sided  personal  experience,  while  Mallet's  work  reads  like 
that  of  a  facile  versifier  speaking  out  of  a  meager  experience 
and  with  a  forced  enthusiasm.  At  any  rate,  when  we  come 
to  "Amyntor  and  Theodora,"  published  years  after  the  full 
edition  of  "The  Seasons,"  Mallet  is  clearly  imitative  in 
thought  and  phrase.  The  ocean,  for  instance,  is  described 
as  "through  boundless  space  diffused,  magnificently  dread- 
ful." Again  it  is  "diffused  immense,"  and  "magnificently 
various."  In  its  depths  "immeasurably  sunk,"  "ten  thou- 
sand thousand  tribes  endless  range."  Its  stormy  waves  are 
"mountains  surging  to  the  stars,  commotion  infinite"  and  they 
break  in  "boundless  undulation."  Storms  are  presaged  by 
"doubling  clouds  on  clouds."  The  earth  glows  with  "the 
boundless  blush  of  spring."  At  sunset  the  sea  shines  with 
"an  unbounded  blush."  A  comparison  of  these  phrases 
with  those  quoted  from  Thomson  on  p.  92,  will  serve  to 
show  in  how  exaggerated  and  inartistic  a  form  Thomson's 
mannerisms  reappeared  in  the  later  work  of  Mallet.  Mallet's 
work,  if  it  had  been  first  in  the  field,  would  have  marked  a 
distinct  advance  in  the  conception  of  Nature.  As  it  is  he  is  of 
real  importance  as  indicating  the  influence  of  Dyer,  and 
especially  of  Thomson. 

"The  Wanderer"  by  Richard  Savage  (1698-1743)  appeared 
in  1729.  Of  this  poem  Dr.  Johnson  says  that  it  was  "never 
denied  to  abound  with  strong  representations  of  nature,"  but 
a  study  of  the  five  long,  confused,  formless  cantos  hardly  con- 
firms such  an  opinion.  Most  of  the  descriptions,  like  those 
of  Mallet's  "  Excursion,"  are  of  scenes  too  remote  for  damag- 
ing comparisons  with  the  reality,  as  of  sunrise  at  the  north 
pole,  or  of  wide  prospects  from  unknown  mounts.  The 
various  details  are  brought  together  with  little  sense  of  unity. 
He  called  the  poem  a  vision,  and  he  had  perhaps  a  right  to 
dreamlike  combinations  of  facts,  but  the  result  is  not  a  con- 


no        NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

tribution  to  the  study  of  external  Nature.  His  diction  is 
vague  and  inexpressive.  There  is  large  use  of  stock  poetic 
words,  and  there  are  many  Thomsonian  echoes.  Most  of 
the  descriptions  are  tame,  classical  imitations.  They  show 
almost  no  first-hand  knowledge  of  the  country.  There  is, 
however,  one  characteristic  of  his  poetry  that  cannot  fail  to 
arrest  the  attention,  and  that  is  his  use  of  color.  Not  even 
Thomson  is  so  lavish  with  bright  tints,  and  they  are  some- 
times nicely  discriminated.  Illustrative  passages  are  referred 
to  in  the  note.'  He  observes  the  color  of  "crooked,  sunny 
roads"  that  change  "from  brown,  to  sandy-red,  and  chalky 
hues."  He  perceives  the  "green  grass  yellowing  into  hay." 
His  sunset  sky  has  several  colors  that  had  not  been  noted  in 
poetry.  Some  of  the  clouds  had  "the  unripen'd  cherry's 
die;"  others  were  "mild  vermilion,"  "streaked  through 
white,"  and  there  was  in  the  sky  a  tinge  of  "floating  green," 
the  result  of  the  "blue  veil'd  yellow"  of  certain  distant  clouds. 
In  a  moonrise  picture  there  are  eight  colors,  beside?  twelve 
words  indicative  of  brightness,  and  that  in  a  description  of 
thirteen  lines.  The  best  of  these  descriptions  is  that  of  the 
peas  and  beans  in  blossom.  References  such  as  those  to  the 
peas  that  with  their  "mixed  flowers  of  red  and  azure"  run 
in  "colour'd  lanes  along  the  furrows,"  and  to  the  beans  that 
after  a  rain  "fresh  blossom  in  a  speckled  flower"  bear  the 
mark  of  first-hand  observation.  The  same  may  be  said  of 
his  brief  touches  descriptive  of  the  roads  and  the  fields  and 
the  sunset  sky  already  referred  to.  There  is  also  fairly 
abundant   reference   to   birds,    though   but   a    single  line, 

The  bullfinch  whistles  soft  his  fiute-like  note, 

I  Cf.  "The  Wanderer,"  v,  237,  238  (roads);  v,  253-68  (fields  and 
bushes);  v,  230-35  (sunset);  v,  363-74  (the  rainbow);  iv,  59-63  (morning); 
iii,  15-27  (moonrise);  v,  8,  15-20  (foHage  and  flowers);  v,  203-10  (bean 
fields);   i,  195-98  (winter  landscape);   iv,  85-96  (sunrise). 


NEW  ATTITUDE  TOWARD  NATURE  ill 

exhibits  any  special  felicity  in  expression.  On  the  whole, 
Savage  is  important  in  the  history  of  the  poetry  of  Nature 
merely  for  his  detailed  insistence  on  color. 

Among  the  minor  poets  of  this  period  was  Stephen  Duck 
(i 705-1 756).  He  spent  most  of  his  life  on  a  farm  where  he 
early  began  to  write  verses  which  attracted  much  local 
attention  and  finally  gained  for  their  author  substantial  favor 
at  Court.  His  "Thresher's  Labour"  is  interesting  simply 
because  it  is  a  realistic  treatment  of  a  homely  English  theme. ^ 
Duck's  poems  were  popular  in  their  own  day,  but  his  treat- 
ment of  Nature  is  commonplace. 

The  poetry  of  these  four  years  is  interesting  because  it 
indicates  how  early  Thomson's  influence  made  itself  felt,  as 
in  the  work  of  Mallet  and  Savage;  and  also  because  it  shows 
a  use  of  Nature  quite  unlike  Thomson's  and  equally  signifi- 
cant of  coming  tendencies,  as  in  the  work  of  Dyer. 

THE  POETS  BETWEEN  173O  AND  1 756 

The  choice  of  1756  as  the  date  to  mark  the  close  of  this 
period  is  based  on  the  appearance  in  that  year  of  Joseph 
Warton's  "  Essay  on  Pope."  In  the  twenty-six  years  between 
Thomson's  "Seasons"  and  this  "Essay,"  the  most  important 
literary  works  are  in  prose,  as  the  novels  of  Fielding,  Richard- 
son, and  Smollett,  and  the  theological  writings  of  Butler, 
Hume,  and  Warburton.  The  period  is  marked  by  the 
establishment  of  numerous  periodicals,  by  the  work  of 
editors,  and  of  compilers.  The  most  important  poetry  of 
the  period  was  the  "Essay  on  Man,"  "Moral  Essays,"  and 
"The  Dunciad"  by  Pope.  In  writing  of  this  sort  there  is, 
of  course,  little  use  of  external  Nature.  Arid  it  has  already 
been  shown  that  the  tragedies  of  Thomson  and  the  later  work 

I  In  1730  appeared  a  parody  entitled  "The  Thresher's  Miscellany"  by 
"Arthur  Duck." 


112  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

of  Armstrong,  Mallet,  and  Dyer  which  appeared  during  these 
years,  either  ignore  Nature  or  treat  it  in  a  stiff  or  simply 
imitative  manner.  But  there  are  in  the  twenty-six  years 
poems  that  are  not  only  in  accord  with  the  changing  attitude 
toward  Nature,  but  that  distinctly  aid  in  the  evolution  of  the 
new  conception.  The  chief  names  are  William  Somerville 
(i675-i742),Winiam  Shenstone  (1714-63),  Matthew  Greene, 
(1696-173 7),  William  CoUins  (1721-59),  William  Hamilton 
(1704-54),  Edward  Young  (1683-1765),  Dr.  Akenside  (1721- 
70),  Thomas  Gray  (1716-71),  Joseph  Warton  (1722-1800), 
and  Thomas  Warton  (1728-90).  There  are  other  authors 
w^hose  works  are  not,  as  a  whole,  of  importance  in  this  study, 
but  who  have  written  single  poems  of  some  significance. 
Some  of  these  minor  poets  are  Samuel  Boyse  (1708-49), 
William  Whitehead  (1715-85),  Dr.  John  Dalton  (1709-63), 
R.  Potter  (1721-1804),  William  Mason  (1724-97),  Francis 
Coventry  (d.  1759  ?),  Richard  Jago  (1715-81),  Moses  Mendes 
(d.  1758),  William  Thompson  (i7i2?-66?),  Joseph  Relph 
(1712-43),    John    Gilbert  Cooper    (1723-69),   and   Robert 

Blair  (1699-1746). 

Somerville,  "a  country  gentleman  and  a  skillful  and  use- 
ful Justice  of  the  Peace,"  was  a  mighty  hunter  in  his  day,  and 
found,  in  leisure  hours,  great  pleasure  in  throwing  into  blank 
verse  the  accumulated  wisdom  of  years  in  the  field.  ''The 
Chace"  he  calls  his  "bold,  instructive  song,"  and  it  so  well 
carries  out  the  second  epithet  as  to  be  of  interest  only  to  his 
"brethren  of  the  couples"  to  whose  kindness  he  commends  it. 
There  is  the  most  minute  description  of  the  kinds  of  hounds, 
the  breeding  of  dogs,  the  care  of  whelps,  their  habits,  their 
diseases  and  the  best  remedies,  and  the  most  desirable  ken- 
nels. In  "  Field  Sports  "  we  have  almost  as  close  a  description 
of  hawking.  Both  poems  are,  however,  destitute  of  any  real 
love  of  Nature.    The  diction,  except  for  a  free  use  of  canine 


NEW  ATTITUDE  TOWARD  NATURE  113 

technicalities,  is  extremely  limited  and  commonplace;  and 
we  look  in  vain  for  the  occasional  happy  touch,  the  felicitous 
epithet  or  line,  that  would  indicate  any  original  or  appre- 
ciative knowledge  of  the  external  world.  When  this  vigorous 
squire  went  out  to  hunt  he  had  eyes  but  for  the  dogs  and  the 
game.     His  few  descriptions  are  of  the  conventional  type,  as: 

Hail,  gentle  Dawn!  mild,  blushing  goddess,  hail! 
Rejoic'd  I  see  thy  purple  mantle  spread 
O'er  half  the  skies,  gems  pave  thy  radiant  way, 
And  orient  pearls  from  every  shrub  depend.^ 

They  are  weak  imitations,  lifeless  and  vague.  "Hobbinol" 
is  a  disagreeable  poem.  Its  very  ugly  rural  pictures  might 
perhaps  rank  as  realistic  studies  of  English  country  life,  but 
so  far  as  any  country  atmosphere  is  concerned  they  are  of  no 
importance.  The  smock-race,  the  wrestling  match,  the 
drunken  affray,  might  as  well  have  taken  place  in  any  city 
slums. 

Somerville  had  a  catholic  taste  in  poetry.  He  greatly 
admired  Homer,  Virgil,  Pope,  Allan  Ramsay,  and  Thomson. 
The  last  poet  he  not  only  admired,  but  imitated.  The 
passage  beginning, 

Justly  supreme !  let  us  thy  power  revere,* 
is  a  pretty  clear  echo  from  Thomson's  ''Hymn,"  and  the 
closing  twenty-five  lines  of  "The  Chace"  must  have  been 
studied  from  the  closing  twenty-two  lines  of  ''Autumn." 
Somerville  is  noteworthy  in  the  present  study  only  because  he 
wrote  on  country  themes,  and  imitated  Thomson. 

Shenstone  is  a  much  more  important  figure  in  the  history 
of  the  poetry  of  Nature.  His  sensitiveness  to  the  new  spirit 
and  his  reverence  for  the  old  form  make  him  an  interesting 
transitional   influence.     His   "Prefatory   Essay   on   Elegy" 

1  "The  Chace,"  ii,  79-82. 

2  "To  the  Right  Honorable  Lady  Anne  Coventry." 


114  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

shows  this  Janus  attitude  and,  what  is  more,  his  own  con- 
sciousness of  it.  "If  the  author  has  hazarded  throughout 
the  use  of  Enghsh  or  modern  allusions,  he  hopes  it  will  not 
be  imputed  to  an  entire  ignorance,  or  to  the  least  disesteem, 
of  the  ancient  learning.  He  has  kept  the  ancient  plan  and 
method  in  his  eye,  though  he  builds  his  edifice  with  the 
materials  of  his  own  nation.  In  other  words,  through  a 
fondness  for  his  native  country  he  has  made  use  of  the  flowers 
it  produced,  though,  in  order  to  exhibit  them  to  the  greater 
advantage,  he  has  endeavored  to  weave  his  garland  by  the 
best  model  he  could  find.'"  This  statement  is  interesting 
as  being  directly  opposed  to  the  thought  in  Gay's  experiment. 
Both  poets  mean  to  hold  by  the  Latin  form  and  use  English 
materials,  the  one  to  show  that  the  two  are  incompatible, 
the  other  to  show  that  they  may  be  united.  Neither  Gay 
nor  Shenstone  thought  of  discarding  the  Latin  form.  In 
the  same  "Essay"  he  claims  that  in  his  use  of  Nature  he  has 
drawn  only  on  personal  experience.  "If  he  describes  a 
rural  landskip,  or  unfolds  the  train  of  sentiments  it  inspired, 
he  fairly  drew  his  picture  from  the  spot;  and  felt  very  sensibly 
the  affection  he  communicates.  If  he  speaks  of  his  humble 
shed,  his  flocks  and  his  fleeces,  he  does  not  counterfeit  the 
scene;  who  having  (whether  through  choice  or  necessity,  is 
not  material)  retired  betimes  to  country  solitudes,  and  sought 
his  happiness  in  rural  employments,  has  a  right  to  consider 
himself  as  a  real  shepherd.  The  flocks,  the  meadows  and 
the  grottoes  are  his  own,  and  the  embellishment  of  his  farm 
his   sole   amusement.     As   the   sentiments,   therefore,   were 

I  An  excellent  example  is  "Nancy  of  the  Vale"  which  takes  as  its  model, 

Nerine  Galatea!  thymo  raihi  dulcior  Hyblae! 
Candidior  cygnisl  hedera  formosior  alba, 

but  compares  Nancy  to  the  "wild-duck's  tender  young,"  to  the  water-lily 
on  Avon's  side,  her  eyes  to  the  azure  plume  of  the  halcyon,  etc. 


NEW  ATTITUDE  TOWARD  NATURE  115 

inspired  by  Nature,  and  that  in  the  earh'er  part  of  his  life,  he 

hopes  they  will  retain  a  natural  appearance."     This  plea 

for  first-hand  observation  is  important  because  it  is  the  most 

direct  of  the  early  critical  remarks  on  the  poetical  treatment 

of  Nature. 

Shenstone's  delight  in  Nature  was  evidently  genuine.     He 

grants  that  men  may  be  dazzled  by  the  city; 

But  soon  the  pageant  fades  away ! 
'Tis  nature  only  bears  perpetual  sway,^ 

and  they  learn  again 

the  simple,  the  sincere  delight — 
Th'  habitual  scene  of  hill  and  dale, 
The  rural  herds,  the  vernal  gale, 
The  tangled  vetch's  purple  bloom. 
The  fragrance  of  the  bean's  perfume.' 

He  speaks  with  scorn  of  those  "bounded  souls"  who  enjoy  in 
Nature  only  the  satisfaction  of  present  needs,  or  the  prospect 
of  future  gain,  and  who  cannot  on  ''the  mere  landscape" 
feast  their  eyes,  and  apostrophizes  them  thus: 

Athirst  ye  praise  the  limpid  stream,  'tis  true: 
But  though,  the  pebbled  shores  among, 
It  mimic  no  unpleasing  song. 
The  limpid  fountain  murmurs  not  for  you. 
Unpleas'd  ye  see  the  thickets  bloom, 
Unpleas'd  the  spring  her  flowery  robe  resume; 
Unmov'd  the  mountain's  airy  pile. 
The  dappled  mead  without  a  smile. 

But  to  the  true  lover  of  Nature, 

Lo !  not  an  hedge-row  hawthorn  blows, 

Or  humble  harebell  paints  the  plain, 
Or  valley  winds,  or  fountain  flows, 

Or  purple  heath  is  ting'd  in  vain: 

1  "Rural  Elegance,"  st.  20. 

2  Ibid.,  St.  19. 


Ii6  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

For  such  the  rivers  dash  the  foaming  tides, 

The  mountain  swells,  the  dale  subsides; 

Ev'n  thrifdess  furze  detains  their  wandering  sight. 

And  the  rough,  barren  rock  grows  pregnant  with  dehght.^ 

Shenstone  also  defends  the  doctrine  that  beauty  is  its  own 
excuse  for  being. 

Let  yon  admir'd  carnation  own, 
Not  all  was  meant  for  raiment,  or  for  food, 
Not  all  for  needful  use  alone. ^ 

Though  Shenstone's  work  is  often  undeniably  tame  and 
diffuse,  and  though  his  interests  were  bounded  by  his  farm, 
he  is  of  significance  because  of  his  thorough  enjoyment  of 
quiet  country  places,  his  indignant  rejection  of  the  utilitarian 
view  of  Nature,  and  his  courageous  plea  for  truth  to  English 

scenes. 

Greene's  chief  poem,  "The  Spleen,"  was  published  in 
1737,  after  his  death.  The  subject  is  not  one  that  would 
lead  to  much  use  of  Nature,  but  there  is  at  least  one  picture 
that  cannot  be  passed  over.^  In  his  sketch  of  the  ideal  life 
he  describes  his  ideal  home.  Its  surroundings  are  most 
charming  and  natural,  and  the  whole  scene,  in  its  unity  and 
reality  of  effect,  contrasts  well  with  such  fanciful  combina- 
tions as  the  garden  in  Tickell's  "To  a  Lady  before  Marriage." 
One  line  in  this  description, 

Brown  fields  their  fallow  sabbaths  keep,-* 

is  remarkable  in  that,  in  so  few  words,  it  not  only  presents  a 
complete  picture,  but  also  awakens  the  feeling  that  would  be 
excited  by  the  scene  itself. 

1  "  Rural  Elegance,"  sts.,  4,  5,  6,  8. 

2  Ibid.,  St.  16. 

3  "The  Spleen,"  11.  646-87. 

4  Ibid.,  I.  681. 


NEW  ATTITUDE  TOWARD  NATURE  117 

Hamilton's  chief  use  of  Nature  is  in  gentle  little  allegories 
of  life.  "The  Rhone  and  the  Arar,"  though  a  description 
of  two  rivers,  is  obviously  didactic  in  all  its  details.  Spring, 
summer,  and  winter  in  Ode  III  are  but  "moral  shows,'* 
spread  out  for  man's  instruction.  Though  Hamilton's 
scenes  are  usually  of  the  soft,  delicious,  vaguely  pleasing  sort, 
and  his  diction  largely  classical,  yet  now  and  then  in  his  rather 
monotonous  spring  poetry  we  find  a  fresh  line  or  phrase,  as 
when  he  comments  on  spring's  gift  of  beauty  to  "each  name- 
less field."  He  finds  joy  in  the  prickly  briar  rose,  the  bright- 
colored  weed,  the  lion's  yellow  tooth,  in  a  thousand  flowers 
never  sowed  by  art.^  He  is  filled  with  gratitude  as  he  looks 
upon  the  smiling  face  of  Nature  and  the  radiant  glories  of 
the  sky,  or  listens  to  the  music  of  the  opening  year.^  In 
"Contemplation"  he  exclaims, 

Mark  how  Nature's  hand  bestows 
Abundant  grace  on  all  that  grows. 
Tinges,  with  pencil  slow  unseen, 
The  grass  that  clothes  the  valley  green; 
Or  spreads  the  tulip's  parted  streaks. 

More  distinctive,  however,  than  this  love  of  the  spring-time 
world,  is  Hamilton's  sense  of  communion  with  Nature.  The 
lines. 

As  on  this  flowering  turf  I  lie, 

My  soul  conversing  with  the  sky, 

and  this  address  to  the  passions  that  tyrannize  over  him. 

This  grove  annihilates  you  all. 
Oh  power  unseen,  yet  felt,  appear! 
Sure  something  more  than  nature's  here, 

are  new  evidences  of  the  spirit  that  animated  Lady  Winchil- 
sea,  Dyer,  and  Parnell. 

1  "The  Epistle  of  the  Thistle." 

2  "Contemplation." 


Ii8  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

Hamilton's  most  important  poem  is  "The  Braes  of  Yar- 
row." In  this  ballad  there  is  a  remarkable  blending  of 
external  Nature  with  the  tragedy  of  love  and  death.  The  use 
of  the  phrase,  "the  Braes  of  Yarrow,"  in  the  refrain  adds  a 
curiously  subtle  touch  to  the  pathos  of  the  poem.  Tradition 
had  so  closely  associated  the  sloping  hills  and  the  winding 
stream  of  Yarrow  with  stories  of  unhappy  love  in  far-off 
days  that  the  name  was  in  itself  enough  to  strike  the  keynote 
of  pathos  in  Hamilton's  ballad.  The  tone  or  color  that 
human  experience  had  once  given  to  th^  scenery  was  carried 
on  by  that  scenery  so  that  it  became  the  approp*^  back- 
ground for  a  new  tale  of  grief.     The  one  descripti\^%^nza, 

Sweet  smells  the  birk,  green  grows,  green  grows  the  grass, 

Yellow  on  Yarrow's  banks  the  gowan, 
Fair  hangs  the  apple  frae  the  rock, 

Sweet  the  wave  of  Yarrow  flowan; 

and  a  single  line  in  the  maiden's  lament, 

I  sang,  my  voice  the  woods  returning, 

are  an  appropriate  setting  for  the  happy  love  of  the  bonny 
bride  and  her  comely  swain.  But  Nature  is  also  compelled, 
as  it  were,  to  share  in  the  grief,  and  is  implicated  in  the  crime. 
On  Yarrow's  rueful  flood  floats  the  body  of  the  slain  knight; 
her  doleful  hills  echo  the  cries  of  sorrow.  And  the  desolate 
bride  prays  that  rain  and  dew  may  forever  forsake  the  fields 
where  her  lover  was  so  basely  slain.  The  descriptive  element 
in  Hamilton's  ballad  is  of  further  interest  as  having  suggested 
some  of  the  details  in  Wordsworth's  "Yarrow  Unvisited." 
"The  Deity,"  a  poem  by  Samuel  Boyse,  and  much 
praised  in  its  own  day,^  is  of  importance  here  merely  because 
of  its  Thomsonian  imitations,  and  because  of  its  conception  of 
God  in  Nature.     This  conception  is,  in  the  main,  the  typical 

I  See  Hervey, "Meditations,"  ii,  239;  Fielding, "Tom  Jones,"  VII,  chap.  i. 


NEW  ATTITUDE  TOWARD  NATURE  IIQ 

classical  one,  as  in  "Omnipotence,"  where  the  central  idea 

is, 

What  hand,  Almighty  Architect,  but  thine 
Could  give  the  model  of  this  vast  design  ? 

In  "Providence,"  however,  the  modified  classical  concep- 
tion is  apparent,  the  ever-working  power  of  God  being  dwelt 
upon.  All  Nature  is  represented  as  being  each  moment 
derived  from  the  Creator. 

The  sun  from  thy  superior  radiance  bright 

Etemal^heds  his  delegated  hght; 

Thou  shedd'st  the  tepid  morning's  balmy  dews, 

are  cb^Kteristic  lines. 

Ju\2X  Boyse  was  an  admirer  of  Thomson  we  know  from 

^^^e  lines  addressed  to  him. 

When  nature  first  inspired  thy  early  strain 
To  paint  the  beauties  of  the  flowery  plain; 
The  charming  page  I  read  with  soft  delight, 
And  every  Uvely  landskip  charmed  my  sight.  ^ 

In  reading  Boyse  it  is  difficult  to  point  out  exact  echoes  from 
Thomson,  but  the  impression  remains  that  certain  passages, 
especially  in  "Glory,"  are,  in  spite  of  their  couplets,  but 
weak  paraphrases  of  some  portions  of  Thomson's  work, 
noticeably  "The  Hymn." 

Young's  literary  career  lasted  from  17 13  to  1762.  His 
"Ocean"  and  "Sea  Pieces"  and  the  only  book  of  the  "Night 
Thoughts  "  (1742-45),  in  which  there  is  much  use  of  external 
Nature,  have  already  been  briefly  characterized.  They  need 
little  further  discussion  here.  The  preface  to  "  Ocean ' '  is  more 
worthy  of  note  than  the  poem  itself.  In  this  preface  Young 
deprecates  slavish  following  of  the  models  of  antiquity, 
declaring  that  "  originals  only  have  true  life."  Due  deference 
to  the  great  standards  of  antiquity  requires  that  "  the  motives 

I  "To  Thomson  on  Sophonisba." 


I20  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

and  fundamental  method  of  their  working"  should  be 
imitated  rather  than  the  works  themselves.  He  then  defends 
his  choice  of  the  ocean  as  a  subject,  saying  that  it  is,  like  the 
subjects  chosen  by  the  ancients,  both  national  and  great,  and 
adds  the  significant  phrase,  "and  (what  is  strange)  hitherto 
unsung."  ''The  crude  ore  of  romanticism"  which  Mr. 
Gosse  finds  in  Young,  has  to  do  with  his  despairing  attitude 
toward  life  and  death,  not  with  his  attitude  toward  external 
Nature.  His  love  of  darkness,  which  seems  at  first  thought 
akin  to  the  sentimental  melancholy  of  the  romantic  poetry,  is 
really  an  unemotional  choice  of  a  fit  background  for  his 
visions  of  gloom.  His  strongest  lines  on  night  represent  not 
its  beauty,  nor  its  melancholy,  but  its  divinity,  or,  rather,  its 
theological  import.     The  following  are  typical: 

Let  Indians  .... 

....  the  sun  adore: 
Darkness  has  more  divinity  for  me; 
It  strikes  thought  inward;  it  drives  back  the  soul 
To  settle  on  herself.^ 

By  night  an  atheist  half-believes  a  God.^ 

At  night  the  sense  of  sacred  quiet  is  "the  felt  presence  of 
of  the  deity. "3  In  occasional  passages  Young  has  more  or 
less  definite  previsions  of  scattered  ideas  in  later  poetry,-*  but 

1  "Night  Thoughts,"  v,  126-30.  =  Ihid.,  176.  3  Ihid.,  171. 

4  See  "Night  Thoughts,"  vi,  where  there  is  an  interesting  statement  of 
the  theory  afterward  expounded  in  Coleridge's  "Ode  to  Dejection."  Com- 
pare Young's, 

Objects  are  but  th'  occasion;  ours  th'  exploit; 

Ours  is  the  cloth,  the  pencil,  and  the  paint, 

Which  nature's  admirable  picture  draws  ("Night,"  vi,  431), 

with  Coleridge's, 

O  Lady!  we  receive  but  what  we  give 
And  in  our  life  alone  does  nature  live; 
Ours  is  her  wedding  garment;  ours  her  shroud. 

In  the  same  passage  by  Young  is  the  line  concerning  the  power  of  our  senses 

that 


■^/  ]  till 


UNIVERSITY    ! 

CF  / 

^''^^^^li^^-^^^WEW  ATTITUDE  TOWARD  NATURE  121 

these  are  incidental,  and  of  merely  curious  interest.  Taken 
in  the  bulk,  his  work  is  so  slightly  and  coldly  concerned  with 
the  outer  world  as  to  offer  no  real  contribution  to  the  new 
feeling  for  Nature. 

Collins  possesses  many  of  the  qualities  and  the  defects 
of  the  romantic  spirit.  He  made  plans  almost  as  compre- 
hensive and  visionary  as  those  of  Coleridge.  His  indolence, 
his  wavering,  irresolute  disposition,  his  morbid  sensitiveness, 
the  intensity  of  his  emotions,  his  love  of  liberty,  his  passion 
for  "high  romance  and  Gothic  diableries,"  together  with  his 
new  sense  of  the  mystery  of  Nature,  set  him  quite  apart  from 
the  men  who  were  his  friends,  from  Dr.  Johnson,  Armstrong, 
Aaron  Hill,  from  Garrick,  Quin,  and  Foote,  even  from 
Thomson.  His  interests  were  not  those  of  his  day,  for  his 
admiration  turned  to  Aeschylus,  Sophocles,  and  Euripides, 
rather  than  to  Virgil  and  Horace.^  In  English  poetry  he  gave 
his  allegiance  to  Spenser,  Milton,  and  Shakspere,  rather 
than  to  Dryden  and  Pope.^     He  was  devoted  to  music.     He 

Half  create  the  wondrous  world  they  see, 

from  which  Wordsworth  took  a  line  in  "Tintern  Abbey."  In  Satire  I,  249 
there  are  some  lines  that  sound  absurdly  like  certain  stanzas  in  "Peter  Bell": 

On  every  thorn  delightful  wisdom  grows; 

In  every  rill  a  sweet  instruction  flows. 

But  some,  untaught,  o'erhear  the  whispering  rill. 

In  spite  of  sacred  leisure,  blockheads  still. 

The  lines 

In  distant  wilds,  by  human  eyes  unseen. 

She  rears  her  flowers,  and  spreads  her  velvet  green; 

Pure  gurgling  rills  the  lonely  desert  trace 

And  waste  their  music  on  the  savage  race  (Satire  V,  229), 

conje  between  the  similar  passages  by  Gay  and  Gray. 

Cf.  also  the  simile  of  the  eagle  and  the  serpent  ("Vanquished  Love," 
Book  II,  226),  with  Shelley's  "Revolt  of  Islam,"  i,  sts.  8-10. 

^  "Ode  to  Fear,"  "Ode  to  Simplicity,"  "An  Epistle  to  Sir  Thomas 
Hanmer,"  "Ode  to  Pity." 

2  "Ode  to  Fear,"  "On  the  Poetical  Character,"  "Popular  Superstitions," 
St.  II,  "An  Epistle  to  Sir  Thomas  Hanmer." 


122  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

was  also  deeply  interested  in  the  remote  history  of  his  own 
country,  and  in  the  legendary  lore  and  superstitions  of  any 
land.  Dr.  Johnson  says  of  him:  "He  loved  fairies,  genii, 
giants,  and  monsters;  he  delighted  to  rove  through  the 
meanders  of  enchantment,  to  gaze  on  the  magnificence  of 
golden  palaces,  to  repose  by  the  waterfalls  of  Elysian  gar- 
dens." 

Collins  was  a  town-bred  poet  and  could  have  known  little 
of  the  country  at  first  hand.  We  might  therefore  expect  all 
his  imagery  to  be  of  the  conventional  sort  in  the  "Eclogues" 
written  in  his  early  school  days.  But  such  is  not  the  case. 
In  the  later  poems  the  use  of  Nature,  slight  as  it  is,  is  marked 
by  unusual  originality  and  imaginative  power.  There  is 
everywhere  present  a  sense  of  delight  in  the  wilder,  freer,  in 
the  more  remote  and  mysterious,  aspects  of  Nature.     He 

makes  Fear  sit 

in  some  hollow'd  seat 
'Gainst  which  the  big  waves  beat, 

and  listen  to 

Drowning  seamen's  cries  in  tempest  brought. 

His  gifted  wizard  seers 

view  the  lurid  signs  that  cross  the  sky 
Where  in  the  west  the  brooding  tempests  lie, 
And  hear  their  first,  faint,  rustling  pennons  sweep. 

Note  also  the  description  of  the  "wide,  wild  storm,"  in  the 
"Ode  to  Liberty,"  and  especially  the  skilful  mingling  of 
landscape  details  and  superstitious  terrors  in  the  "Ode  on 
Popular  Superstitions."  The  "bewitch'd,  low,  marshy, 
willow  brake,"  "the  spot  where  hums  the  sedgy  reed,"  the 
"dim  hill  that  seems  up-rising  near,"  "Uist's  dark  forest," 
"the  watery  strath  or  quaggy  moss,"  "the  damp,  dark  fen," 
are  slight  touches,  but  they  serve  perfectly  to  suggest  the 
fit  home  of  the  kelpie,  the  will-o'-the-wisp,  the  mischievous 


NEW  ATTITUDE  TOWARD  NATURE  123 

fairy  folk,  and  the  phantom  train  of  gliding  ghosts.     But 

Collins'  most  appreciative  use  of  Nature  is  in  the  "  Ode  to 

Evening  (1746)."     That  poem  was  doubtless  the  result  of 

personal  experience,  for  it  notes  facts,  such  as  the  rising  of 

the  beetle  in  the  path  at  twilight,  that  were  not  yet  stock 

poetical  property.     The  lines, 

Thy  dewy  fingers  draw 
The  gradual  dusky  veil, 

could  hardly  have  been  written  by  one  unfamiliar  with  the 
slow  disappearance  of  a  landscape  as  night  comes  on.  More 
remarkable  are  the  simplicity  and  directness  of  touch  by 
which  the  few  details  are  made  to  stand  for  complete  pictures. 
The  cloudy  sunset,  the  silence  of  evening,  the  calm  lake  amid 
the  upland  fallows,  the  fading  view,  the  windy  day  in  autumn, 
are  all  excellent  examples  of  the  stimulative  as  opposed  to  the 
delineative  description.  But  the  final  impression  made  on 
the  mind  is  powerful  mainly  because  in  some  way  that  escapes 
analysis  the  very  mood  and  spirit  of  evening,  its  calm,  its 
tender  melancholy,  breathe  through  the  unpretending  lines. 
We  seldom  find  in  the  eighteenth  century,  personifications  so 
high  and  spiritual,  description  so  essentially  poetical,  or 
workmanship  so  perfect  in  its  simplicity. 

Dr.  Akenside's  "The  Pleasures  of  the  Imagination," 
though  not  published  till  1744,  was  begun  in  1738  when  the 
author  was  but  seventeen,  and  completed  when  he  was 
twenty-one.  In  1757  it  was  remodeled  and  many  additions 
were  made.  In  its  first  form  the  poem  was  essentially  a  prod- 
uct of  the  author's  precocious,  brilliant  youth.  Yet  it  has 
little  of  the  fire  and  passion  of  youth.  It  is  a  smooth,  correct, 
rather  frigid  exposition  of  certain  philosophical  principles. 
The  whole  poem  seems  like  an  illustration  of  Akenside's 
behef  that  poetry  is  true  eloquence  in  meter.'     It  is  not 

»  Mason,  "Memoirs  of  Gray,"  p.  261. 


124  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

marked  by  any  especially  rich  or  faithful  portrayal  of  Nature, 
nor  is  there  much  description.  In  point  of  fact,  such  de- 
scriptions as  occur  are  often  marred  by  eighteenth-century 
periphrases  such  as  calling  honey  "ambrosial  spoils;"  the 
sun,  "the  radiant  ruler  of  the  year;"  flowers,  "the  purple 
honors  of  the  spring;"  water,  "a  delicious  draught  of  cool 
refreshment;"  and  frogs,  "the  grave,  unwieldly  inmates  of 
the  neighboring  pond."  There  is  also  frequent  use  of  stock 
words  and  of  worn-out  similitudes.  But  in  spite  of  its  cold- 
ness, this  poem  is  an  important  contribution  to  the  develop- 
ment of  the  poetry  of  Nature  because  of  its  new  conception 
of  the  relation  between  man  and  Nature. 

When  the  poet  endeavors  to  explore  the  "secret  paths  of 
early  genius,"  he  imagines  inspiration  as  coming  to  the  lonely 
youth  from  some  "wild  river's  brink  at  eve,"  or  from  " solemn 
groves  at  noon,"^  and  there  is  one  passage  that  lays  a  Words- 
worthian  emphasis  on  the  effect  of  Nature  on  the  soul  of  a 
child: 

0  ye  Northumbrian  shades,  which  overiook 
The  rocky  pavement  and  the  mossy  falls 
Of  solitary  Wensbeck's  limpid  stream; 
How  gladly  I  recall  your  well-known  seats 
Beloved  of  old,  and  that  delightful  time 
When,  all  alone,  for  many  a  summer's  day, 

1  wandered  through  your  calm  recesses,  led 
In  silence  by  some  powerful  hand  unseen. 

Nor  will  I  e'er  forget  you;  nor  shall  e'er 
The  graver  tasks  of  manhood,  or  the  advice 
Of  vulgar  wisdom,  move  me  to  disclaim 
Those  studies  which  possessed  me  in  the  dawn 
Of  life,  and  fix'd  the  color  of  my  mind 
For  every  future  year.* 

1  "Pleasures  of  Imagination,"  Book  IV,  26  (1770). 

2  "Pleasures  of  Imagination,"  Book  IV,  38-51  (1770);  cf.  "Hymn 
to  the  Naiads,"  11.  243-49;  cf.  Wordsworth,  "  Prelude,"  Book  I,  402,  and  many 
other  passages  concerning  the  silent  power  of  Nature  over  him  in  his  youth. 


NEW  ATTITUDE  TOWARD  NATURE  125 

But  the  great  scene  of  Nature  does  not  appear  the  same  to  all. 
It  is  only  to  the  finer  spirits  that  the  true  meaning  of  the  outer 
world  is  revealed.^  These  nobler  souls  are  all  "naked  and 
alive  "^  to  the  influences  of  Nature  to  which  they  respond  as 
Memnon's  image  to  the  touch  of  the  morning.^  Form,  color, 
sound,  motion,  detain  the  enlivened  sense,  and  soon  the  soul 
perceives  the  deep  concord  between  these  attributes  of  matter 
and  the  mind  of  man.-^  The  passions  are  lulled  to  a  divine 
repose.  The  intellect  itself  suspends  its  graver  cares.  Love 
and  joy  alone  possess  the  soul 

Whom  nature's  aspect,  nature's  simple  garb, 
Can  thus  command,  s 

For  the  happy  man  whom  neither  sordid  wealth  nor  the 
gaudy  spoils  of  honor  can  seduce  to  leave  the  sweets  of 
Nature, 

Each  passing  hour  sheds  tribute  from  her  wings: 
And  still  new  beauties  meet  his  lonely  walk, 

And  loves  unfelt  attract  him 

....  Nor  thence  partakes 
Fresh  pleasure  only;  for  the  attentive  mind. 
By  this  harmonious  action  on  her  powers. 
Becomes  herself  harmonious;  wont  so  oft 
In  outward  things  to  meditate  the  charm 
Of  sacred  order,  soon  she  seeks  at  home 
To  find  a  kindred  order,  to  exert 
Within  herself  this  elegance  of  love.^ 

1  "Pleasures  of  Imagination,"  Book  I,  136-40  (1757). 

2  Ibid.,  120  (1744). 

3  Ibid.,  150  (1757).  4  Ibid.,  153-60  (1757). 

s  Ibid.,  168-75  (1757);    cf.    Wordsworth,  "Tintern  Abbey,"  11.  41-49. 

6  "Pleasures  of  Imagination,"  Book  III,  591-605  (1744).  This 
"sacred  order"  of  the  universe  is  one  of  the  points  on  which  Wordsworth 
dwells,  and  he  refers  frequently  to  the  tranquilizing,  steadying  effect  which 
the  contemplation  of  this  order  and  harmony  will  have  on  the  mind  of  man. 
See  "Excursion,"  Book  IV,  1198-1219,  1254-65. 


126  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

If  men  feel  themselves  cramped  by  custom,  by  sordid  policies, 
let  them  appeal 

to  Nature,  to  the  winds 

And  rolling  waves,  the  sun's  unwearied  course, 

The  elements  and  seasons. 

All  these  call  us  to  beneficent  activity. 

Thus  the  men 
Whom  Nature's  works  can  charm,  with  God  himself 
Hold  converse;  grow  familiar,  day  by  day, 
With  his  conceptions,  act  upon  his  plan. 
And  form  to  his  the  relish  of  their  souls. ^ 

But  even  the  susceptible  soul  must  come  to  Nature  in  an  open, 

receptive  mood.     The  sacred  rites  of  the  Naiads  are  sought 

in  vain  by  the  "eyes  of  care."     No  vision  is  granted  to  the 

preoccupied  guest.*     There  is  also  an  independent  life  in 

Nature,  or  at  least  a  spirit  that  is  no  reflection  of  man's  moods, 

but  with  qualities  of  its  own  whereby  man  is  influenced. 

Throned  in  the  sun's  descending  car, 
What  power  unseen  diffuseth  far 

This  tenderness  of  mind  ? 
What  Genius  smiles  on  yonder  flood  ? 
What  God,  in  whispers  from  the  wood, 

Bids  every  thought  be  kind  ?^ 

Who  can  tell. 
Even  on  the  surface  of  this  rolling  earth. 
How  many  make  abode  ?  The  fields,  the  groves, 
The  winding  rivers  and  the  azure  main, 
Are  rendered  solemn  by  their  frequent  feet. 
Their  rites  subhme.-* 

The  power  of  Nature  over  man  is  constant  and  varied. 

I  "Pleasures  of  Imagination,"  Book  III,  615-33  (1744). 

3  "Odes,"  Book  I,  Ode  14,  st.  4-6;    cf.  Wordsworth's  statement  that 
Nature  reveals  herself  to  the  heart  that  "watches  and  receives." 

3  "Odes,"  Book  I,   Ode  5,   st.   8. 

■♦  Pleasures  of  Imagination,"  Book  I,  670-75  (1757). 


NEW  ATTITUDE  TOWARD  NATURE  127 

She  is  endowed  with  such  enchantment,  made  up  of  forms 
so  exquisitely  fair,  breathed  through  with  such  ethereal  sweet- 
ness, that  she  can  at  will  "raise  or  depress  the  impassioned 
soul."'  Her  dark  woods  rouse  him  to  solemn  awe.  Her 
gay  landscapes  with  blue  skies  and  silver  clouds  give  an 
impression  of  winning  mirth.  There  is  in  the  rising  sun 
something  kindred  to  man's  spirit.  At  evening  the  "breath 
divine  of  nameless  joy,"  that  steals  through  the  heart,  is  but 
another  message  from  the  spirit  of  love  that  rules  the  world. 
All  the  forms  of  the  external  world  are  but  visible  expressions 
of  such  thoughts  of  God  as  the  mind  of  man  is  fitted  to  receive.  \/ 
The  soundness  of  this  interpretation  of  Nature  is  not  here  in 
question.  We  are  merely  concerned  with  the  fact  that  in  the 
middle  of  the  century  we  find  a  statement  of  poetical  creed 
which,  so  far  as  the  thought  is  concerned,  might  come  from 
"The  Excursion"  or  "The  Prelude."  Akenside  is  one  oiy 
the  first  of  the  poets  of  the  age  to  insist  on  the  beauty  of  all 
Nature, 2  and  to  show  an  abiding  sense  of  the  spiritual  ele- 
ments that  give  significance  to  the  external  forms  of  Nature.  ^ 
He  was  also  the  first  one  to  emphasize  the  platonic  doctrine  of 
the  identity  of  truth  and  beauty, 

For  Truth  and  Good  are  one ; 
And  Beauty  dwells  in  them,  and  they  in  her.3 

A  minor  poet,  John  Gilbert  Cooper,  must  be  mentioned 
because  of  one  poem,  "The  Power  of  Harmony"  (1745).  In 
execution  it  is  heavy  and  involved.  It  is  a  clumsy  attempt 
to  work  out  a  theory  of  beauty.     The  preface  is  more  inter- 

I  "Pleasures  of  Imagination,"  Book  III,  484  (1757). 
»  im.,  I,  576-89  (1757). 

3  ZJzJ.,  432-37  (1757).  Akenside's  presentation  of  this  doctrine  has 
led  Gosse  to  call  him  a  "sort  of  frozen  Keats,"  but  Akenside's  pleasure  in 
Nature  was  philosophical  rather  than  sensuous.  His  scientific  delight  in  the 
analyzed  rainbow  ("Pleasures  of  Imagination,"  Book  II,  103-20  [1744]) 
would  have  filled  Keats  with  horror. 


128  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

esting  than  the  poem.  In  this  preface  he  says:  "It  is  the 
design  of  the  poem  to  show  that  constant  attention  to  what 
is  perfect  and  beautiful  in  Nature  will,  by  degrees,  harmonize 
the  soul  to  a  responsive  regularity  and  sympathetic  order." 
In  the  poem  he  ascribes  to  "each  natural  scene  a  moral 
power,"  and  traces  even  the  song  of  birds  and  the  frisking  of 
cattle  to  the  effect 

Of  beauty  beaming  its  benignant  warmth 
Through  all  the  brute  creation. 

He  believes  also  that  all  parts  of  Nature  are  beautiful. 
Shagged  rocks,  barren  heaths,  precipices,  sable  woods,  head- 
long rivers,  all  are  examples  of  the  principle  of  harmony  and 
so  of  beauty. 

Somewhat  earlier  in  the  period  is  another  minor  poet  who 
would  be  today  practically  unknown  had  not  Southey  pre- 
served his  work.  This  is  Joseph  Relph,  the  son  of  a  Cum- 
berland statesman.  He  was  born  in  Shergham,  where  he 
spent  most  of  his  unhappy  life.  His  "Cumbrian  Pastorals" 
were,  Southey  says,  transcripts  from  real  life.  They  are 
among  the  very  earliest  attempts  to  represent  the  Cumber- 
land dialect,  and  they  are  a  close  record  of  Cumberland  super- 
stitions and  games  and  customs.  The  poems  show  an  original 
study  of  the  scenery  about  Shergham,  as  in  the  following 

lines: 

A  finer  hay-day  was  never  seen, 

The  greenish  sops  already  luik  less  green 

And  see  how  finely  striped  the  fields  appear, 
Striped  like  the  gown  'at  I  on  Sundays  wear. 
White  show  the  rye,  the  big  of  blaker  hue; 
The  bluimen  pezz  greenm^nt  wi'  reed  and  blue. 

Blair's  one  important  poem  is  "The  Grave"  (1743)-  Its 
aim  is  a  moral  one,  and  it  makes  but  slight  use  of  the  outer 


NEW  ATTITUDE  TOWARD  NATURE  129 

world.  There  is,  however,  one  interesting  realistic  descrip- 
tion of  a  row  of  ragged  elms 

Long  lash'd  by  the  rude  winds.     Some  rift  half  down 
Their  branchless  trunks;  others  so  thin  atop, 
That  scarce  two  crows  could  lodge  in  the  same  tree. 

These  elms,  the  cheerless  unsocial  yew,  the  wan  moon,  the 
howling  wind,  the  screech  owl,  the  moss-grown  stones  skirted 
with  nettles,  are  descriptive  details  that  serve  very  well  to  add 
the  desired  "supernumerary  horror"  to  the  scene.  "The 
Grave"  is  one  of  the  earliest  poems  to  give  to  melancholy 
reflections  on  man's  mortality  the  Nature  setting  that  was 
later  recognized  as  the  conventionally  appropriate  one. 

William  Thompson  is  best  known  by  his  "  Epithalamium" 
(1736),  "Sickness"  (1745)  and  especially  his  "Hymn  to 
May,"  written  "not  long  after. "  His  poems  were  published 
in  a  volume  in  1757.  His  "Milkmaid"  is  a  stilted,  artificial 
pastoral  filled  in  with  homely  details.  Colin  begs  politely 
and  on  his  knees  that  Lucy  will  smile  upon  him; 

So  may  thy  cows  forever  crown 
With  floods  of  milk  thy  brimming  pail; 
So  may  thy  cheeze  all  cheeze  surpass, 
So  may  thy  butter  never  fail. 

Lucy,  of  course,  sighed  and  blushed  a  sweet  consent.  This 
pastoral,  together  with  his  admiration  of  Pope's' Alexis,  who 
was  so 

Gently  rural!  without  coarseness  plain; 

How  simple  in  his  elegance  of  grief! 

A  shepherd  but  no  clown, 

would  hardly  lead  one  to  suspect  much  satisfactory  study  of 
Nature  in  Thompson's  poetry.  But  there  is  apparent  in  the 
"Hymn"  and  even  in  "Sickness,"  through  all  the  florid, 
exuberant  diction  and  obscure  forms  of  expression,  a  genuine 


I30  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

delight  in  the  beauty  and  freshness  of  the  outer  world.     He 

was  a  great  admirer  of  Thomson,  who  as 

Nature's  bard  the  seasons  on  his  page 
Stole  from  the  year's  rich  hand,^ 

and  his  poems  show  Thomson's  influence  in  expression  and 

general    conception.     Such    phrases    as    the     "boundless 

majesty  of  day,"  the  "sun's  refulgent  throne,"  the  "vernant 

showery  bow  profusive,"  clouds  of  "ten  thousand  inconsistent 

shapes,"   are   suggestive.     Here   is   a   typical   Thomsonian 

passage: 

What  boundless  tides  of  splendor  o'er  the  skies, 
O'er  flowing  brightness!  stream  their  golden  rays! 
Heaven's  azure  kindles  with  the  varying  dyes.^ 

Or  take  this  one: 

And  what  a  prospect  round 
Swells  greenly  grateful  on  the  cherish'd  eye; 
A  universal  blush,  a  waste  of  sweets  !3 

There  are  many  other  suggestions  of  Thomson  in  these 
"tender  and  florid"  descriptions  of  "the  beauties,  the  pleas- 
ures, and  the  loves"  of  spring.  William  Thompson  is  of 
importance  in  this  study  merely  because  he  is  one  more  poet 
who  loved  Nature,  who  wrote  of  her  with  enthusiasm,  and 
who  imitated  Thomson.  His  chief  use  of  Nature  is  in 
similitudes  and  in  frequent  enthusiastic  summaries  of  the 
charms  of  Nature. 

Moses  Mendes  pubHshed  in  1751  four  poems  named  in 
imitation  of  Thomson,  "Spring,"  "Summer,"  "Autumn,'' 
and  "Winter."     There  is  some  first-hand  observation  in  such 

lines  as, 

The  pool-sprung  gnat  on  sounding  wings  doth  pass 
And  on  the  ramping  steed  doth  suck  his  fill, 

1  "Sickness,"  v,  5. 

2  "Hymn  to  May,"  St.  20. 

3  "Sickness,"  v,  17. 


NEW  ATTITUDE  TOWARD  NATURE  131 

or, 

The  patient  cow  doth,  to  eschew  the  heat, 
Her  body  steep  within  the  neighboring  rill; 

but  more  often  the  observations  are  of  the  conventional  imi- 
tative sort,  as  in  this  couplet: 

On  every  hill  the  purple-blushing  vine 
Beneath  her  leaves  her  racy  fruit  doth  hide, 

which  is  hardly  true  of  an  English  scene.  On  the  whole  the 
passages  in  which  Mendes  treats  of  Nature,  while  rather 
fanciful  and  decorative,  are  not  indicative  of  any  real  knowl- 
edge of  Nature. 

Jago's  most  important  poems  are  "Edge  Hill"  (1767), 
"The  Swallow"  (1748),  "The  Blackbirds"  (1753),  and  "The 
Goldfinches."  The  last  two  are  love  stories  of  the  birds 
named,  each  love  story  being  disastrously  ended  by  the 
cruelty  of  man  in  taking  innocent  life.  "The  Swallow"  is 
an  allegory  of  life  and  death.  " Edge  Hill"  is  notable  for  its 
pleasure  in  wide  views  which  are  minutely  traced,  and,  alas, 
made  "generally  interesting  by  reflections,  historical,  philo- 
sophical, and  moral."  The  new  note  is  struck  by  the  excep- 
tional frequency  and  evident  appreciation  with  which  the 
poet  notes  the  mountains  in  the  different  views.  Of  "  Dafset's 
ridgy  mountain,"  he  says, 

Like  the  tempest-driven  wave, 
Irregularly  great,  his  bare  tops  brave 
The  winds. 

To  the  west 

Braids  Hfts  his  scarry  sides, 
And  Ilmington,  and  Campden's  hoary  hills 
Impress  new  grandeur  on  the  spreading  scene, 

While  distant,  but  distinct,  his  Alpine  ridge 
Malvern  erects  o'er  Esham's  vale  sublime. 


132  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

In  1750  appeared  Francis  Coventry's  "Pens-hurst,"  a 
poem  in  rhymed  octosyllabics,  notable  chiefly  for  its  many 
imitations  of  Milton.  Another  poem  written  by  Coventry  to 
the  Honorable  Wilmot  Vaughan  indicates  that  the  two  friends 
had  found  some  pleasure  in  mountain  climbing: 

Dost  thou  explore  Sabrina's  fountful  source, 

Where  huge  PHnlimmon's  hoary  height  ascends: 
Then  downwards  mark  her  vagrant  course 

'Till  mixed  with  clouds  the  landscape  ends  ? 
Dost  thou  revere  the  hallowed  soil 

Where  Druids  old  sepulchred  He  ? 
Or  up  cold  Snowden's  craggy  summits  toil 

And  muse  on  ancient  savage  liberty  ? 
Ill  suit  such  walks  with  bleak  autumnal  air. 

In  the  "World,"  April  12,  1753,  Coventry  also  had  an 
article  entitled  "Strictures  on  the  absurd  Novelties  intro- 
duced in  Gardening,"  which  was  a  plea  for  simplicity  and 
naturalness. 

WiUiam  Mason,  who  is  a  poet  known  chiefly  because  he 
had  insight  enough  to  appreciate  Gray,  may,  in  this  study, 
be  lightly  passed  over.  His  dramas  "Elfrida"  (1752),  and 
"  Caractacus"  (1759)  were  written  on  the  model  of  the  ancient 
Greek  tragedy.  They  have  little  to  do  with  external  Nature, 
although  in  order  to  introduce  "touches  of  pastoral  descrip- 
tion" such  as  had  especially  delighted  him  in  "Comus" 
and  "As  You  Like  It"  he  had  laid  the  scene  of  "Elfrida" 
in  "an  old  romantic  forest."  "Caractacus"  is  a  Druid 
play  the  action  of  which  takes  place  on  or  near  "majestic 
Snowden,"  but  there  is  only  a  single  passage  in  which  the 
wild  scenery  is  made  effective  in  the  poem,  and  that  is  the 
ode  beginning, 

Mona  on  Snowden  calls; 

Hear,  thou  King  of  Mountains,  hear. 


NEW  ATTITUDE  TOWARD  NATURE  133 

Later  on  the  ode  allies  itself  with  romantic  work  by  its  use  of 
the  supernatural  but  it  makes  slight  use  of  Nature.  Mason's 
chief  significance  in  this  study  is  in  what  he  had  to  say  about 
gardens.  In  "To  a  Water  Nymph"  (1747),  there  is  a  pro- 
test against  the  elaborate  Gothic  fountains  then  fashionable, 
and  also  against  shell  work  and  mineral  grottoes.  His  long 
work,  "The  English  Garden,"  will  be  spoken  of  later. 

The  greatest  name  in  this  period  is  that  of  Thomas  Gray. 
His  prose  will  be  taken  up  under  "Travels."  His  poetry 
falls  into  three  periods.'  The  first  or  classical  period,  in  spite 
of  an  occasional  good  line,  such  as 

The  untaught  harmony  of  Spring, 

is  entirely  conventional  in  its  use  of  Nature,  the  prevailing  tone 
being  exemphfied  in  such  phrases  as  "the  attic  warbler," 
"  the  purple  year,"  and  "Venus'  train."  But  in  the  two  poems 
of  1742-50,  we  find  close  and  appreciative  study  of  the 
country  about  Windsor  and  Stoke  Pogis.  In  the  ode  on 
"Eton  College"  the  wistful  pleasure  with  which  the  poet 
recalls  his  childhood  is  intensified  by  his  memory  of  the 
beloved  hills  and  fields,  the  silver-winding  stream,  and  the 
pleasant  paths  inseparably  associated  with  the  care-free  days 
of  his  youth.  In  the  "Elegy"  the  use  of  Nature  is  highly 
artistic.  The  purpose  of  the  poem  is  a  human  one — the 
sympathetic  representation  of  the  honorable  labor,  the  inno- 
cent joys,  the  tender  and  wholesome  affections  of  the  poor, 
the  general  tone  being  that  of  a  pensive  melancholy  induced 
by  the  thought  of  death.  Nature  is  used  in  due  subordina- 
tion to  the  theme,  and  with  exquisite  fitness.  Every  detail  of 
the  opening  twilight  picture  contributes  its  owti  touch  to  pre- 
pare the  mind  for  the  succeeding  reflections  on  death.  The 
sounds,  the  tinkling  of  the  distant  folds,  the  droning  of  the 

I  Phelps,  "The  Beginnings  of  the  English  Romantic  Movement." 


134         "  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

beetle,  the  complaining  of  the  owl,  are  such  as  emphasize 
silence,  which  is  itself  an  accompaniment  and  an  emblem 
of  death.  The  i\7-mantled  tower,  the  rugged  elms,  the 
black  yews,  have  been  immemorially  associated  with  death. 
There  is  also  a  subtle  analogy  in  the  withdrawal  of  light,  the 
life  of  Nature.  So,  too,  each  detail  in  the  first  picture  of 
morning,  has  its  human  purpose.  The  stirring  sounds  are 
interesting  and  of  pathetic  import  because  they  once  waked 
an  answering  throb  of  life  in  the  hearts  of  men  who  now  hear 
them  no  more.  The  enumeration  of  homely  country  tasks 
has  its  chief  value  in  the  suggested  delight  of  the  workman  in 
his  occupation  and  the  resultant  emphasis  by  contrast  on  the 
pathos  of  death. 

In  the  last  six  stanzas  of  the  poem  we  find  the  true  roman- 
tic conception  of  the  relation  between  man  and  Nature.  The 
poet  is  represented  as  a  shy,  solitary  being  in  communion  with 
Nature,  and  drawing  his  inspiration  from  her.  In  the  morn- 
ing he  hurries  to  some  hillside  that  he  may  watch  the  sunrise; 
at  noon  he  stretches  himself  at  full  length  under  some  beech- 
tree  by  the  side  of  a  brook,  and  pores  over  the  waters  as  they 
babble  by;  or  he  w^anders  through  the  woods,  murmuring 
to  himself  his  wayward  fancies.  This  poet  is  certainly  far 
enough  removed  from  the  typical  town-bred  poet  of  the  clas- 
sical regime.  He  is  rather  of  the  same  race  as  Warton's 
Enthusiast,  and  he  at  least  suggests  Wordsworth's  Poet  who 
murmurs  by  the  running  brooks  a  music  sweeter  than  their 
own.'  In  these  stanzas  Nature  is  not  only  the  appropriate 
dramatic  background.  It  is  taken  up  into  the  mental  action 
and  becomes  at  least  in  part  the  occasion  of  the  poet's  moods, 
and  it  is  entirely  through  the  relation  of  the  poet  to  Nature 
that  these  moods  are  revealed  to  the  reader. 

Nature  is  thus  throughout  the  poem  made  strictly  sub- 
I  Wordsworth,  "A  Poet's  Epitaph,"  st.  lo. 


NEW  ATTITUDE  TOWARD  NATURE  135 

servient  to  the  human  theme,  but  the  intrinsic  beauty  of  the 
brief  descriptions,  quite  apart  from  the  context,  cannot  pass 
unnoticed.  Separate  Hnes  have  the  power  of  suggesting 
whole  pictures.     For  example  in 

How  bowed  the  woods  beneath  their  sturdy  stroke, 

the  ringing  blow  of  the  ax,  the  crash  of  the  falling  tree,  smite 
upon  the  ear.    The  stanza  beginning 

Oft  did  the  harvest  to  their  sickle  yield 

suggests  several  themes  for  the  landscape  artist.  There  is 
also  a  wide,  peaceful  landscape  effect  in 

The  lowing  herds  wind  slowly  o'er  the  lea. 

And  the  line 

The  swallow  twittering  from  its  straw-built  shed 

brings  up  all  the  details  of  a  humble  farmyard.  These  and 
other  descriptions  in  the  "Elegy"  are  distinctively  English  in 
spirit  and  detail.  They  are  the  result  of  first-hand  knowl- 
edge, they  are  drawn  with  a  firm  hand,  and  they  are  used  with 
an  instinctive  recognition  of  artistic  fitness. 

A  new  range  of  sympathies,  howxver,  appears  in  the  poems 
of  Gray's  third  or  purely  romantic  period.  Here  he  writes  of 
northern  mythologies  and  superstitions  or  gives  transcripts  of 
Norse  tales,  and  the  pictures  interwoven  with  the  human  ele- 
ments are  of  a  wild  and  savage  character.  In  "The  Bard," 
mountain,  precipice,  and  torrent  form  a  setting  without 
which  the  fiery  denunciation  of  the  poet  would  lose  half  its 
force.  The  storm  and  the  whirlwind  sweep  through  these 
poems.  Rough  and  frowning  steeps,  foaming  floods,  war- 
ring winds,  the  heights  of  Snowdon  and  huge  Plinlimmon, 
darkness,  cold,  make  up  the  terrible  but  dramatically  appro- 
priate environment  for  the  fierce,  imprecatory  elegy  which 
the  bard  utters  over  his  lost  companions,  for  the  fatal  and 


136  NATURE  IX  ENGLISH  POETRY 

dreadful  song  of  the  gigantic  sisters  weaving  "the  loom  of 

Hell." 

In  one  or  two  other  poems  there  is  effective  use  of  Nature. 

The  joy  of  a  convalescent  able  at  last  to  go  out  of  doors  was 

not  an  uncommon  subject  through  this  period,  but  there  is  no 

better  expression  of  it  than  in  "A  Fragment"  by   Gray. 

The  feeling,  and  in  passages,  the  phraseology,  are  almost 

Wordsworthian. 

The  meanest  flowret  of  the  vale, 
The  simplest  note  that  swells  the  gale, 
The  common  sun,  the  air,  the  skies, 
To  him  are  opening  Paradise, 

is  an  illustrative  stanza.     There  are  also  some  exquisite  lines 

on  birds,  as, 

But  chief,  the  Sky-lark  warbles  high 
His  trembling  thrilling  ecstacy; 
And,  lessening  from  the  dazzled  sight, 
Melts  into  air  and  liquid  light,'' 

and, 

There  pipes  the  wood-lark,  and  the  song-thrush  there 
Scatters  his  loose  notes  in  the  waste  of  air.^ 

Though  undated  these  lines  in  their  spirit  and  workmanship 
ally  themselves  at  once  with  the  period  of  the  "  Elegy"  rather 
than  with  the  later  work.  They  also  accurately  repre- 
sent Gray's  dominant  attitude  toward  Nature,  his  knowledge 
of  sweet,  homely  things,  and  the  delicate  perfection  of  his 
literary  touch. 

The  Rev.  R.  Potter's  chief  poem  is  "A  Farewell  Hymn 
to  the  Country,  Attempted  in  the  Manner  of  Spenser's 
Epithalamion"  (1749).  The  poem  shows  much  sympathetic 
knowledge  of  some  parts  of  Nature,  especially  of  birds  and 

»  "On  the  Pleasure  Arising  from  Vicissitude." 
2  "Couplet  about  Birds." 


NEW  ATTITUDE  TOWARD  NATURE  137 

trees.  He  speaks  of  the  quail  that  "runnes  piping  o'er 
the  land,"  of  the  '^mavis-haunted  grove,"  and  of  the  nightin- 
gale that  delights  "the  stillness  of  the  night."  He  declares 
that  his  entire  orchard,  plums,  pears,  grapes,  permains,  and 
all,  is  at  the  service  of  these,  his  "fellow-poets."     At  evening 

The  slumb'ring  trees  seem  their  tall  tops  to  bow 
Rocking  the  careless  birds  that  on  them  nest 
To  gentle,  gentle  rest. 

He  does  not  often  refer  to  specific  trees,  but  he  gives  little 
suggestive  pictures  as  of  "the  uncertain  shaded  grove,"  or 

the  doubtfull  shade 
By  quivering  branches  made, 

or  of  delightful  resting  places  roofed  with  "inwoven 
branches."  The  stream  for  which  he  cared  most  was  "the 
gentle  Tave"  in  Norfolk.  He  mentions  many  flowers,  but 
in  no  new  or  finely  descriptive  manner.  His  sensitiveness 
to  perfumes  we  may  see  in  such  lines  as, 

Sweet  is  the  breath  of  heaven  with  day-spring  bom, 

Where  the  fresh  hay-cock  breathes  along  the  mead, 

or  in  such  phrases  as  "this  flowre-perfumed  aire."  The 
poem  is  rich  in  color,  as  in  the  descriptions  of  sunrise,  and  of 
various  kinds  of  fruit. 

Though  it  would  be  difficult  to  quote  specific  lines  to 
prove  the  statement,  it  is  nevertheless  true  that  the  whole 
poem  conveys  in  a  quite  unusual  degree  a  sense  of  warm, 
abiding  affection  for  the  simple  scenes  of  the  country.  "  Smit 
with  the  peaceful  joys  of  lowly  life,"  he  gives  thanks  for  "the 
unmoved  quiet  of  his  silver  daies,"  and  thinks  with  dread  of 
"the  cares  and  pains  in  mad  cities."  His  use  of  Nature  is 
almost  entirely  in  a  running  assemblage  of  sweet  sights  and 
sounds  to  justify  his  preference  for  country  life. 


138  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

Another  of  the  minor  poets  of  this  period  is  Dr.  John 
Dahon.  In  1755  he  wrote  a  "Descriptive  Poem,"  inscribed 
to  "Two  Ladies,  the  Daughters  of  Lord  Lonsdale."  It  is 
long,  rambling,  tedious,  but  it  is  of  historical  importance  as 
being  probably  the  first  poetical  tribute  to  the  beauty  of 
Westmoreland  and  Cumberland. 

Then  change  the  scene:  to  Nature's  pride, 
Sweet  Keswick's  vale,  the  Muse  will  guide. 
The  Muse,  who  trod  th'  enchanted  ground, 
Who  sail'd  the  wonderous  lake  around. 
With  you  will  haste  once  more  to  hail 
The  beauteous  brook  of  Borrodale. 

He  speaks  of  the  streams  that 

rejoice  to  roar 
Down  the  rough  rocks  of  dread  Lodore, 

and  says  that 

Horrors  like  these  at  first  alarm, 
But  soon  with  savage  grandeur  charm. 
And  raise  to  noblest  thoughts  your  mind. 
Thus  by  thy  fall,  Lodore,  reclin'd, 
The  cragged  cliff,  inpendent  wood. 
Whose  shadows  mix  o'er  half  the  flood. 
The  gloomy  clouds,  which  solemn  sail. 
Scarce  lifted  by  the  languid  gale 
O'er  the  cap'd  hill  and  darken'd  vale 


I  view  with  wonder  and  delight, 
A  pleasing  tho'  an  awful  sight. 


Of  Keswick  and  Skiddaw  he  wTites, 

Thy  roofs,  O  Keswick,  brighter  rise ! 
The  lake  and  lofty  hills  between, 
Where  giant  Skiddow  shuts  the  scene. 

Supreme  of  mountains,  Skiddow,  hail! 
To  whom  all  Britain  sinks  a  vale ! 


NEW  ATTITUDE  TOWARD  NATURE  139 

Lo,  his  imperial  brow,  I  see 
From  foul  usurping  vapors  free ! 
'Twere  glorious  now  his  side  to  climb, 
Boldly  to  scale  his  top  subUme. 

There  are  several  passages  in  the  poem  indicative  of  Dr. 
Dalton's  unusually  close  study  of  streams,  especially  those 
near  Lowther  Castle,  and  in  the  picturesque  valley  of  Bor- 
rowdale.  With  evident  delight  he  traces  the  stream  from 
its  mountain  source,  over  tuneful  falls,  under  broad  spreading 
boughs,  along  silent  meadows,  to  the  wide  lake.  There  is 
also  a  fine  passage  descriptive  of  a  patriarchal  oak  near 
Lowther.  It  is  the  first  sustained  description  of  a  specific 
tree  with  anything  like  the  modern  feeling.  It  is  represented 
as  standing  in  a  ''sunny  plain  alone."  Its  reverend  age,  its 
majesty,  are  especially  dwelt  upon.  The  poem  shows  some 
excellent  first-hand  observation.  Dr.  Dalton  is  ahead  of 
Wordsworth  in  noticing  the  ''azure  roofs"  of  the  lowly  cot- 
tages. x\nd  he  should  have  the  credit  of  discovering  the 
beauty  of  the  vale  of  Derwentwater,  and  the  majesty  of  giant 
Skiddaw,  fourteen  years  before  Gray  made  his  famous  tour, 
and  nearly  half  a  century  before  the  Lake  poets  set  up  their 
monopoly. 

The  most  important  work  of  this  period  was  doubtless 
that  of  the  Warton  brothers.  Their  father  was  also  a  poet, 
and  he  struck  the  romantic  note  in  his  hatred  of  city  life  and 
his  longing  for  solitude  in  the  country.  Joseph  Warton  had 
a  long  literary  career  during  which  he  edited  books,  wrote 
poems,  and  contributed  articles  to  periodicals.  Those  of 
his  poems  that  were  of  especial  note  in  the  history  of  Roman- 
ticism were  written  early  in  life,  between  1740  and  1753. 
"The  Enthusiast"  (1740),  "Odes  on  Various  Subjects" 
(1746),  and  "Ode  on  Mr.  West's  Translation  of  Pindar" 
(1744)  are  the  chief  ones  to  be  studied.     In  these  poems  there 


I40  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

are  many  summaries  of  such  objects  in  Nature  as  give 
pleasure,  but  there  is  httle  actual  description.  In  details  and 
phraseology  there  are  frequent  echoes  from  Milton  and 
Thomson.^ 

In  general,  though  unoriginal  in  expression,  the  poems 
are  marked  by  an  unmistakably  genuine  love  of  Nature,  and 
of  Nature  untouched  by  man.  The  poet  dislikes  Versailles 
whose  fountains  cast 

The  tortur'd  waters  to  the  distant  heav'ns." 

Even  Kent — 

Though  he,  by  rules  unfettered,  boldly  scorns 
Formality  and  method,  round  and  square 
Disdaining,  plans  irregularly  great,^ 

cannot  design  like  Nature.  No  gardens  however  artfully 
adorned  can  charm  like  "unfrequented  meads  and  pathless 
wilds."  The  poet  finds  peculiar  pleasure  in  all  the  wild,  soli- 
tary, mournful  aspects  of  Nature.  He  loves  "hollow  winds" 
and  "ever-beating  waves,'.'  and  hoary  mountains  where 

Nature  seems  to  sit  alone. *  E^^   i . 

I  "All-beauteous  Nature!  by  thy  boundless  charms,"  "the  vast,  vari- 
ous Landscape,"  "sight-refreshing  green,"  "the  thousand-colored  tuHp," 
are  typical  Thomsonian  phrases. 

"Liquid  lapse  of  murm'ring  waters" 

— "Enthusiast,"  1.  93,  "Paradise  Lost,"  viii,  263; 

"Mountain  shagg'd  with  horrid  shapes" 

—"Enthusiast,"  1.  75;  "Comus,"  1.  429; 
"When  young-eyed  spring  profusely  throws 
From  her  green  lap  the  pink  and  rose." 
— "Ode  to  Fancy,'-'  1.  106;  "Song  on  May  Morning;" 

"Then  lay  me  by  some  haunted  stream, 
Rapt  in  some  wild  poetic  dream." 

— "*Ode  to  Fancy,"  1.  41;  "L'AUegro,"  I.  129; 

are  some  of  the  characteristic  instances  of  the  echoes  from  Milton. 

a  "The  Enthusiast." 

•     3  Ibid.  4  "Ode  to  Fancy." 


NEW  ATTITUDE  TOWARD  NATURE  141 

He  wishes  for 

some  pine-top'd  precipice 

Abrupt  and  shaggy,  whence  a  foamy  stream 

Like  Anio,  tumbling,  roars;  or  some  black  heath 

Where  straggling  stands  the  mournful  juniper, 

Or  yew-tree  scath'd.^ 

He  escapes  from  the  hated  city's  "tradeful  hum"  and  seeks 
for  sohtude  at  "the  deep  dead  of  night"  under  the  pale 
light  of  the  moon.  He  is  alive  to  all  the  mysterious,  romantic 
suggestions  of  Nature.  He  is  charmed  by  the  little  dancing 
fays  that  sip  night-dews  and  "laugh  and  love"  in  the  dales. 
In  storms  he  hears  demons  and  goblins  shrieking  through 
the  dark  air.  He  is  also  deeply  conscious  of  the  effect  of 
Nature  on  man.  He  finds  himself  even  oppressed  by  the 
boundless  charms  of  "brooks,  hill,  meadow,  dale,"  and  it  is 
his  belief  that  all  Nature  conspires 

To  raise,  to  soothe,  to  harmonize  the  mind. 
Nature  can  give  happiness  beyond  that  of  luxury  or  gratified 
ambition.  These  poems  mark  a  new  phase  in  the  feeling 
toward  Nature,  because,  with  little  description,  with  no 
theory  to  propound,  no  moral  to  teach,  no  human  interest  to 
exemplify,  the  poet  with  a  rapt  fervor  and  intensity  cries  out 
for  solitary  communion  with  Nature  as  a  necessity  of  his  own 
being.  Warton  is  also,  I  think,  the  first  of  the  romantic  poets 
to  advocate  a  return  to  Nature  in  the  sense  in  which  Rousseau 
used  the  phrase: 

Happy  the  first  of  men,  ere  yet  confin'd 
To  smoaky  cities;  who  in  sheltering  groves, 
Warm  caves,  and  deep-sunk  vaUies  liv'd  and  lov'd. 
•     Yet  why  should  man  mistaken  deem  it  nobler 
To  dwell  in  palaces  and  high-roof'd  halls, 
Than  in  God's  forests,  architect  supreme !' 

I  "The  Enthusiast." 

»  "The  Enthusiast."    Cf.  Thomson,  "Liberty,"  ii,  1-26,  for  a  similar 
eulogy  of  a  past  golden  age,  but  without  Warton's  modern  application. 


142  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

Joseph  Warton's  exceptionally  strong  love  of  Nature  is 
emphasized  by  the  testimony  of  Bowles  who  traces  his  own. 
love  of  Nature  to  companionship  with  Dr.  Warton,  and 
by  the  testimony  of  his  brother  Thomas  in  a  poem,  "An 
Ode  Sent  to  a  Friend."  In  this  poem  Thomas  Warton 
tells  of  his  brother's  delight  in  walks  at  morning  and 
evening  through  unfrequented  grassy  lanes,  or  in  the  deep 
forest,  or  up  steep  hills  "to  view  the  length  of  landscape 
ever  new." 

A  part  of  the  service  which  Warton  rendered  to  the  poetry 
of  Nature  rests  in  the  fact  that  he  led  the  attention  from  Pope 
to  poets  who  had  treated  of  Nature  with  imaginative  power. 
He  had  only  scorn  for 

The  fearful,  frigid  lays  of  cold  and  creeping  Art, 

"the  courtly  silken  lay,"  "the  polished  lyrics,"  of  his  own  day. 
But  it  is  in  his  prose  that  we  find  the  best  evidence  of  his 
break  with  the  classicists.  In  the  dedication  prefixed  to  the 
"Essay  on  Pope"  (1756)  he  divided  English  poets  into  four 
classes,  putting  in  the  first  class  only  Spenser,  Shakspere, 
and  Milton.  Of  Pope  he  said,  "I  revere  the  memory  of 
Pope;  I  respect  and  honor  his  abilities,  but  I  do  not  think 
him  at  the  head  of  his  profession."  He  then  proceeded  to 
show  the  difference  "betwixt  a  man  of  wit,  a  man  of  sense, 
and  a  true  poet."  In  the  first  and  second  sections  of  the 
"Essay"  he  minutely  discusses  Pope's  descriptive  poetry 
showing  that  his  idea  of  pastoral  poetry  as  representing  some 
golden  age  was  but  "an  empty  notion,"  and  commenting 
severely  on  his  mixture  of  British  and  Grecian  ideas.  He 
condemns  "Windsor  Forest"  because  its  images  are  "equally 
applicable  to  any  place  whatsoever."  In  contrast  with  Pope 
he  puts  Thomson,  of  whose  "Seasons"  he  gives  a  most  dis- 
criminating eulogy.     It  is  too  long  to  quote  entire,  but  a  part 


NEW  ATTITUDE  TOWARD  NATURE  143 

of  it  must  be  given  if  only  to  show  its  remarkably  modern 
tone. 

Thomson  was  blessed  with  a  strong  and  copious  fancy;  he  hath 
enriched  poetry  with  a  variety  of  new  and  original  images,  which  he 
painted  from  nature  itself,  and  from  his  own  actual  observ^ations;  his 
descriptions  have,  therefore,  a  distinctness  and  truth,  which  are  utteriy 
wanting  to  those  of  poets  who  have  only  copied  from  each  other,  and 
have  never  looked  abroad  on  the  objects  themselves.  Thomson  was 
accustomed  to  wander  away  into  the  country  for  days,  and  for  weeks 
attentive  to  "each  rural  sight,  each  rural  sound,"  while  many  a  poet, 
who  has  dwelt  for  years  in  the  Strand,  has  attempted  to  describe  fields 
and  rivers,  and  generally  succeeded  accordingly.  Hence  that  nauseous 
repetition  of  the  same  circumstances;  hence  that  disgusting  impropriety 
of  introducing  what  may  be  called  a  set  of  hereditary  images,  without 
proper  regard  to  the  age,  or  cHmate,  or  occasion  in  which  they  were 

formeriy  used And  if  our  poets  would  accustom  themselves  to 

contemplate  fully  every  object,  before  they  attempted  to  describe  it, 
they  would  not  fail  of  giving  their  readers  more  new  and  complete 
images  than  they  generally  do.^ 

Wordsworth  himself  was  hardly  more  emphatic  in  his 
scorn  of  vague  descriptions  and  hereditary  images,  and  in  his 
plea  for  simple  truth  to  Nature.  The  passages  already 
quoted  are  sufficient  to  show  how  self-conscious  and  theoret- 
ical was  Warton's  romanticism.  He  was  not,  however,  so  far 
as  the  study  of  Nature  alone  is  concerned,  the  first  self-con- 
scious worker  in  the  new  field.  Ramsay  and  Shenstone  had 
already,  apologetically  to  be  sure,  but  none  the  less  distinctly, 
entered  their  protest  against  the  conventional  imitations  of 
their  day.  But  Warton  uttered  no  apology.  His  theory  was 
fully  established  in  his  own  mind.  He  came  down  on  the 
classicists  with  hammer  and  tongs,  and  enunciated  in  1756 
at  least  two  of  the  cardinal  doctrines  of  the  poets  of  Nature 
who  wrote  forty  years  later. 

Thomas  Warton's  poems  seem  at  first  reading  to  be  but  a 

I  "An  Essay  on  the  Genius  and  Writings  of  Pope." 


144  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

patchwork  of  phrases  from  Milton/  "The  Pleasures  of 
Melancholy"  (1745)  was  written  when  he  was  but  seventeen. 
The  theme  of  this  poem  is  a  defense  of  solitude  against  various 
social  pleasures,  and  it  has  the  customary  note  of  delight  in 
darkness,  tombs,  pale  shrines,  "fav'rite  midnight  haunts," 
"pale  December's  foggy  glooms,"  and  "the  pitying  moon." 
"The  First  of  April,"  "Ode  on  the  Approach  of  Summer," 
and  "  Morning,  an  Ode,"  are  of  more  importance  so  far  as  the 
love  of  Nature  is  concerned.  The  lines  on  the  opening  spring 
show  close  observation. 

Reluctant  comes  the  timid  spring. 

Fringing  the  forest's  devious  edge 
Half  rob'd  appears  the  hawthorn  hedge. 

Scant  along  the  ridgy  land 

The  beans  their  new-bom  ranks  expand. 

The  rooks  swarm  with  clamorous  call  and 

Wreathe  their  capacious  nests  anew. 

The  fisher  "bursting  through  the  crackling  sedge" 

Startles  from  the  bordering  wood 
The  bashful  wild-duck's  early  brood. 

And  so  loud  the  blackbird  sings 
That  far  and  near  the  valley  rings. 

He  notes  also  the  kite  that  sails  above  the  crowded  roof  of 
the  dove-cote,  the  plumy  crest  of  thistles,  the  russet  tints 
and  gleams  of  light  in  the  tops  of  trees  at  sunset,  the  faint, 
varying  shades  of  green  when  the  new  foliage  appears  on  the 
trees,  and  the  blue  tint  of  the  unchanging  pine  standing  in 

I  Note  such  lines  as 

Haste  thee  nymph,  and  hand  in  hand, 
With  thee  lead  a  buxom  band; 
Bring  fantastic-footed  joy,  etc., 

But  ever  against  restless  heat,  etc., 

Let  not  my  due  feet  fail  to  climb,  etc.— "  Approach  of  Summer." 


NEW  ATTITUDE  TOWARD  NATURE  145 

their  midst.  Warton's  pleasure  in  wide  views  is  indicated  in 
several  passages  where  he  speaks  of  climbing  a  hill  for  the 
sake  of  the  broad  prospect  of  field  and  stream.  He  had  also 
an  appreciation  of  wild  Nature,  as  we  see  from  the  descrip- 
tions in  "The  Grave  of  King  Arthur."  Warton's  work  is 
of  interest  because  of  the  many  attractive  details  scattered 
through  his  poems,  but  there  is  httle  unity  of  effect.  The 
general  impression  is  that  he  saw  Nature  first  through  Milton's 
eyes,  and  that  when  he  afterward  made  many  charming  dis- 
coveries for  himself  he  tried  to  express  them  in  the  "II 
Penseroso"  manner. 

His  chief  influence  was  through  his  "  Observations  on  the 
Faerie  Queen"  and  in  his  "History  of  Poetry,"  but  except 
as  attention  was  thus  directed  to  older  writers,  these  works 
had  no  effect  on  the  poetry  of  Nature. 

In  Joseph  Warton's  "Enthusiast"  (1740)  the  love  of 
solitary  communion  with  Nature  was  supreme.  About 
fourteen  years  later  appeared  William  Whitehead's  "En- 
thusiast," which  is  of  interest  here  because  it  shows  so  well 
the  typical  eighteenth-century  view  in  contrast  to  the  pure 
romanticism  of  Warton.  In  Whitehead's  "Enthusiast"  the 
poet  yields  instinctively  to  the  new  spirit,  but  is  suddenly 
recalled  to  himself,  is  rendered  sane  by  the  wise  admonitions 
of  Reason.  It  is  a  bright  day  in  May.  The  poet,'entranced 
by  the  beauty  about  him,  walks  forth, 

With  loit'ring  steps  regardless  where, 
So  soft,  so  genial  was  the  air, 
So  wond'rous  bright  the  day. 

And  now  my  eyes  with  transport  rove 
O'er  all  the  blue  expanse  above. 

Unbroken  by  a  cloud ! 
And  now  beneath  delighted  pass, 
WTiere,  winding  through  the  deep-green  grass, 

A  full-brim'd  river  flow'd. 


146  NATURE  IX  ENGLISH  POETRY 

These,  these  are  joys  alone,  I  cr}'; 
'Tis  here,  divine  Philosophy, 

Thou  deign'st  to  fix  thy  throne! 
Here  Contemplation  points  the  road 
Through  Nature's  charms  to  Nature's  God! 

These,  these  are  joys  alone! 

Then  Reason  whispers  "monitory  strains,"  and  teaches  the 
Enthusiast  that  "hght,  and  shade,  and  warmth,  and  air," 
that  the  "philosophic  calmness,"  the  visionary  sense  of 
"universal  love,"  which  come  to  man  from  Nature,  must 
sink  into  insignificance  before  the  exalted  joys  of  Virtue,  and 
reminds  the  poet  that  "man  was  made  for  man."  The  in- 
trinsic value  of  this  poem  is  slight,  but  it  is  noteworthy  because 
we  see  the  two  tendencies  contending  for  mastery.  White- 
head was  no  poet.  He  simply  reflected  in  a  turbid  fashion 
what  more  original  men  were  saying.  His  tolerably  full 
statement  of  the  romantic  attitude  toward  Nature,  with  his 
subsequent  assertion  of  the  triumphant  good  sense  of  classi- 
cism is,  therefore,  valuable  testimony  to  the  twofold  spirit  of 
the  age. 

In  general  we  may  say  that  we  find  during  this  period, 
rural  didactic  poetry  treating  of  English  subjects  in  the  man- 
ner of  John  Philips  in  "Cyder,"  as  in  Somerville  and  Smart. 
There  is  good  local  color  in  some  descriptive  poems  as  in 
Shenstone,  Gray,  Dr.  Dalton,  and  Relph.  There  is  through- 
out the  period  first-hand  observation,  but  it  is  not  so  abun- 
dant, nor  is  the  openness  of  the  poet's  mind  to  sensuous  impres- 
sion so  apparent  as  in  some  preceding  work.  There  is,  how- 
ever, delicate  and  poetic  handling  of  material  as  in  the  poems 
of  Gray  and  Collins  and  Greene.  There  is  a  self-conscious 
endeavor  to  break  away  from  ancient  models,  as  in  Ramsay's 
"Preface"  and  Shenstone's  "Preface,"  and  from  existing 
poetic   domination   as   in   Warton's   protest   against   Pope. 


NEW  ATTITUDE  TOWARD  NATURE  147 

Truth  to  Nature,  independence  of  observation,  as  necessary 
poetic  qualities,  are  for  the  first  time  openly  and  theoretically 
insisted  on  in  Warton's  "Essay."  There  is  scorn  of  the 
utilitarian  view  of  Nature,  as  in  Shenstone.     The  debt  of  man  a 

to  Nature  is  dwelt  upon  with  new  emphasis  by  Young,  Shen-  \ 

stone,  and  especially  Akenside.  The  sense  of  a  divine  spirit 
in  Nature  is  clearly  expressed  by  Akenside,  and  less  clearly 
by  Young.  The  purely  romantic  love  of  Nature  in  connec- 
tion with  sentimental  melancholy  is  fully  exemplified  in  Joseph 
Warton.  There  is  strong  personal  enthusiasm  for  Nature 
in  Shenstone,  Akenside,  and  Joseph  Warton.  There  is  love 
of  animals  in  Shenstone  and  Jago.  There  is  notable  repre- 
sentation of  country  people  in  Relph  and  Gray  and  Somer- 
ville. 

THE  PERIOD  FROM  1 756  TO  1 798 

From  the  ''Essay  on  Pope"  to  the  "Lyrical  Ballads"  is  a 
long  period  but  any  subdivision  would  be  purely  arbitrary. 
It  is  chiefly  characterized  by  the  development  and  emphasis 
of  influences  already  manifestly  operant.  The  most  valuable 
work  is  that  of  James  Macpherson  (1736-96),  James  Beattie 
(1735-1803),  Robert  Burns  (1759-96),  William  Cowper 
(1731-1800),  William  Blake  (1757-1827),  and  George  Crabbe 
(1754-1832).  Oliver  Goldsmith  (1728-74)  is  of  less  impor- 
tance. John  Brown  (1715-66),  John  Langhorne  (1735-79), 
Christopher  Smart  (1722-71),  John  Logan  (1748-88),  and 
William  Lisle  Bowles  (i  762-1 850),  though  minor  poets,  are 
significant  in  their  poetry  of  Nature.  Of  less  note  are  William 
Julius  ]Mickle  (1735-88),  James  Grainger  (1724-66),  Michael 
Bruce  (1746-67),  James  Graeme  (1749-72),  John  Scott 
(1730-83),  and  Richard  Cumberland  (1732-1811). 

John  Brown,  otherwise  unimportant,  is  interesting  because 
of  his  early  appreciation  of  the  scenery  of  the  English  lakes. 


148  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

He  wrote  a  description  of  Keswick^  in  a  letter  to  Lyttleton, 
and  his  undated  "Fragment  of  a  Rhapsody  Written  at  the 
Lakes  of  Westmoreland"  is  probably  the  outcome  of  the 
same  visit.  The  ''Fragment"  is  short  and  may  be  quoted 
entire  as  well  because  of  its  beauty,  as  because  of  its  subject 
and  early  date: 

Now  sunk  the  sun,  now  twilight  sunk,  and  night 
Rode  in  her  zenith;  nor  a  passing  breeze 
Sigh'd  to  the  groves,  which  in  the  midnight  air 
Stood  motionless;  and  in  the  peaceful  floods 
Inverted  hung;   for  now  the  billow  slept 
Along  the  shore,  nor  heav'd  the  deep,  but  spread 
A  shining  mirror  to  the  moon's  pale  orb, 
Which,  dim  and  waning,  o'er  the  shadowy  cliffs. 
The  solemn  woods  and  spiry  mountain  tops 
Her  ghmmering  faintness  threw.     Now  every  eye 
Oppress'd  with  toil,  was  drown'd  in  deep  repose, 
Save  that  the  unseen  shepherd  in  his  watch, 
Propt  on  his  crook,  stood  listening  by  the  fold, 
And  gaz'd  the  starry  vault  and  pendant  moon. 
Nor  voice  nor  sound  broke  on  the  deep  serene 
But  the  soft  murmur  of  swift  gushing  rills, 
Forth  issuing  from  the  mountain's  distant  steep 
(Unheard  till  now,  and  now  scarce  heard)  proclaimed 
All  things  at  rest,  and  imag'd  the  still  voice 
Of  quiet  whispering  to  the  ear  of  night. 

For  a  curious    coincidence    compare    Wordsworth's    lines 

written  thirty  years  later: 

The  song  of  mountain  streams,  unheard  by  day, 
Now  hardly  heard,  beguiles  my  homeward  way. 

John  Langhome  was  born  at  Kirby-Stephen  in  Westmore- 
land. His  best  poems  were  published  in  1766,  though  his 
"Fables  of  Flora"  did  not  appear  till  1771.  Langhome  had 
an  enthusiastic  personal  love  for  Nature.     He  dwelt  with 

I  See  under  "Travels." 


NEW  ATTITUDE  TOWARD  NATURE  149 

rapture  on  stream  and  flower  and  field  and  sky.'     His  wish 

was, 

Oh  let  me  still  with  simple  nature  live, 
My  lowly  field  flowers  on  her  altar  lay; 
Enjoy  the  blessings  that  she  meant  to  give 
And  calmly  waste  my  inoffensive  day.^ 

Or  again, 

Slow  let  me  climb  the  mountain's  airy  brow; 
The  green  height  gained,  in  museful  rapture  lie, 
Sleep  to  the  murmur  of  the  woods  below 
Or  look  to  nature  with  a  lover's  eye. 3 

His  preference  for  Nature  untouched  by  art  is  seen  in  the 
charming  Httle  "  Fable  "^  showing  the  superiority  of  the  wild 
rose  to  the  more  splendid  cultivated  rose.  And  in  another 
"Fable"  he  says, 

Come  let  us  leave  the  painted  plain, 
This  waste  of  flowers  that  palls  the  eye; 
The  walks  of  nature's  wilder  reign 
Shall  please  in  plainer  majesty. 5 

That  he  had  a  tender  feeling  toward  animals  is  shown  by  his 
poems  on  birds  and  by  his  protest  against  the  cruelty  of  con- 
fining birds  in  cages.  The  most  striking  characteristic  of 
Langhome's  poems  is  his  direct  expression  of  the  excellence 
of  the  gift  that  Nature's  hand  bestows.  A  part  of  his  excel- 
lent gift  is  the  inspiration  to  poetry.  The  young  shepherd 
was  inspired  with  "poetic  charms"  as  he  wandered  through 
the  wild  scenes 

By  Yarrow's  banks  or  groves  of  Endermay. 

In  his  own  experience 

The  nameless  charms  of  high  poetic  thought, 

1  "Hope." 

2  "Vision  of  Fancy,"  Elegy  3.  4  "  Fable  IV." 

3  Ibid.  s  "The  Bee  Flower." 


150  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

were  born  of  "spring's  green  hours,"  and  the  murmuring 

shore  spoke  to  him  "divine  words,'"  while  in  earher  days 

"each  lay  that  falter'd  from  his  tongue"  had  been  "from 

Eden's  murmurs  caught."^     In  an  ode  to  the  "Genius  of 

Westmoreland,"  he  says  that  she  kindled  the  "sacred  fire" 

in  his  heart,  that  she  gave  him  "thoughts  too  high  to  be 

exprest."     Again  he  speaks  of  an  hour  in  his  youth  when 

The  woodland  genius  came 
And  touched  me  with  his  holy  flame. ^ 

Statements  still   more  remarkable  as   foreshadowing   later 

doctrines  are  found  in  such  lines  as, 

Whatever  charms  the  ear  or  eye, 
All  beauty  and  all  harmony. 
If  sweet  sensations  they  produce, 
I  know  they  have  their  moral  use. 

I  know  that  nature's  charms  can  move 
The  springs  that  strike  to  virtue's  love.* 

Or  these  lines, 

Has  fair  philosophy  thy  love  ? 
Away!  she  lives  in  yonder  grove. 
If  the  sweet  muse  thy  pleasure  gives. 
With  her,  in  yonder  grove,  she  lives. 
And  if  rehgion  claims  thy  care, 
ReHgion  fled  from  books  is  there. 
For  first  from  nature's  works  we  drew 
Our  knowledge  and  our  virtue  too.s 

Langhorne's  perception  of  the  power  of  Nature  over  man, 
and  his  passionate  sense  of  personal  indebtedness  to  Nature 
are  the  keynotes  of  his  work.  In  a  narrow  way  and  with 
feeble  speech  he  shows  a  mental  and  spiritual  experience  of 

I  "To  the  Rev.  Lamb."  3  "Autumnal  Elegy." 

a  "Fable  IV."  4  '  Fable  X." 

5  "Inscription  on  the  Door  of  a  Study." 


NEW  ATTITUDE  TOWARD  NATURE  151 

the  same  type  as  that  which  Wordsworth  records  of  his  own 
youth.  His  motive  in  writing,  "  an  unaffected  wish  to  promote 
the  love  of  Nature  and  the  interests  of  humanity,"  is  Hkewise 
Wordsworthian. 

In  Christopher  Smart's  one  great  poem,  the  "Song  to 
David"  (1763),  the  use  of  Nature  is  of  so  strange  a  character 
that  it  refuses  classification  under  the  customary  categories. 
The  chief  thought  of  the  poem  in  the  parts  where  Nature  is 
used  has  to  do  with  the  creative  energy  of  God,  the  song  of 
praise  that  is  eternally  his  from  all  existence,  and  the  exceed- 
ing sweetness,  strength,  beauty,  and  glory  of  the  Spirit  of 
God  in  man.  These  themes  are  not  new  with  Smart  in  this 
poem.  In  his  prize  poems  ten  years  before  he  had  taken  the 
attributes  of  God  as  his  subject,  and  the  general  line  of 
thought,  and  the  method  of  proof  by  the  rapid  accumulation 
of  illustrative  images  drawn  from  Nature  are  practically  the 
same  as  in  the  "Song  to  David."  Here  and  there  "are  in- 
stances of  the  same  noble  conceptions  and  striking  phrases, 
as  in  this  picture  of  a  tree : 

The  oak 
His  lordly  head  uprears,  and  branching  arms 
Extends — behold  in  regal  solitude 
And  pastoral  magnificence  he  stands 
So  simple !  and  so  great !  The  underwood 
Of  meaner  rank  an  awful  distance  keep.^ 

Or  this  description  of  the  Leviathan  that. 

The  terror  and  the  glory  of  the  main, 

His  pastime  takes  with  transport  proud  to  see, 

The  ocean's  vast  dominions  all  his  own.* 

It  is,  however,  only  in  the  "Song"  that  the  early  themes 

1  "The  Immensity  of  the  Supreme  Being." 

2  Ihid.y  1.  56.  Cf.  also  the  similar  lines  in  "Hymn  to  the  Supreme 
Being,"  st.  16.  It  was  apparently  a  favorite  image.  See  Browning's 
reference  to  it  in  his  poem  on  Smart. 


152  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

are  treated  with  sustained  energy  of  thought  and  splendor  of 
imagery.  In  this  poem  each  thought  is  abundantly  illus- 
trated from  Nature.  The  details  are  brought  together  from 
every  clime  and  season.  They  are  poured  forth  with  im- 
petuous ardor.  The  excited  imagination  of  the  poet  does 
not  hesitate  and  choose.  The  universe  is  laid  under  contri- 
bution. There  is  a  prodigal  heaping-up  of  the  treasures  of 
Nature,  an  almost  barbaric  splendor  of  images.  Does  the 
poet  wish  to  say  that  all  Nature  praises  God?  The  earth 
passes  before  him  as  in  a  vision.  The  great  song  of  adora- 
tion swells  upon  his  ear  from  every  form  of  harmonious  activ- 
ity. Seasons  change,  almonds  glow,  tendrils  climb,  fruit 
trees  blossom,  birds  build  their  nests,  bell-flowers  nod,  the 
spotted  ounce  and  her  cubs  play,  harvests  ripen,  wild  carna- 
tions blow,  the  pheasant  shows  his  glossy  neck,  the  squirrel 
hoards  nuts,  the  map  of  Nature  is  crowded  with  scenes  of 
beauty,  the  crocus  "burnishes  alive"  upon  the  snow-clad 
earth,  the  bullfinch  sings  his  flute  note,  the  redbreast  balances 
on  the  hazel  spray,  silver  fish  glide  through  rivers,  cataracts 
fall,  fruits  are  luscious,  gums  give  out  incense,  all  to  "  heap  up 
the  measure,  load  the  scales"  with  praise  to  the  Lord  who  is 
great  and  glad.  In  this  rapid  summary  there  is  a  pomp,  an 
energy,  an  activity  that  is  indescribable.  A  later  stanza  on 
strength  is  almost  terrifying  in  its  powerful  imagery. 

Strong  is  the  lion — like  the  coal 
His  eyeball — like  a  bastion's  mole 
His  chest  against  the  foes: 
Strong  the  gier-eagle  on  his  sail, 
Strong  against  tide  the  enormous  whale 
Emerges  as  he  goes. 

Except  Blake's  "Tiger"  I  recall  no  poem  marked  by  the 
same  tenseness  and  abrupt  energy. 

Many  of  the  details  in  Smart's  poems  were  drawn  from 


NEW  ATTITUDE  TOWARD  NATURE  153 

his  reading,  especially  from  the  Hebrew  Scriptures.  They 
could  not  have  come  from  observation  for  they  have  little  to 
do  with  the  ''old,  oft  catalogued  repository  of  things  in  sky 
and  wave  and  land."  The  images  are  fresh,  original,  daring. 
They  startle  the  mind  out  of  passivity. 

Another  point  to  be  noted  is  the  peculiar  combination  of 
facts.  Bears,  sleek  tigers,  ponies,  and  kids,  are  the  beasts 
assembled  to  illustrate  God's  creative  activity,  and  so  in  other 
combinations.  Objects  the  least  likely  to  suggest  each  other 
are  brought  together.  In  the  same  way  facts  from  Nature 
and  from  human  nature  are  strangely  mingled.  Among 
beauteous  things  are  reckoned  a  fleet  before  a  gale,  a  host  in 
glittering  armor,  a  wild  garden,  a  moonlight  night,  and  a 
virgin  before  her  spouse. 

Amidst  the  prettinesses,  decencies,  timidities,  of  the 
eighteenth-century  poetry  of  Nature,  this  poem  by  Smart 
sounds  out  like  a  trumpet.  The  marshaled  facts  move  for- 
ward like  a  cohort  of  soldiers  with  a  splendid  tread  that 
shakes  the  earth.     The  whole  effect  is  Hebraic,  apocalyptic. 

Mickle's  chief  poems  are  "Syr  Martyn"  (1767)  "Polho" 
(1762)  and  some  shorter  pieces.  In  "Pollio"  Mickle  makes 
frequent  references  to  his  own  love  of  Nature.  The  country 
he  knew  best  was  that  about  Roslin  Castle  where  he  was 
brought  up,  but  he  was  not  unfamiliar  with  other  parts  of 
southeast  Scotland  as  is  shown  by  his  references  to  the  Forth, 
the  Annan,  the  Wauchope,  the  Ewes,  to  the  dales  of  Tiviot, 
and  to  various  country  seats.  His  interest  in  Nature  was 
varied  in  character.  In  "Almada  Hill"  (1781)  and  "May 
Day"  there  are  frequent  appreciative  lines  on  mountains,  as: 

Where  Snowden's  front  ascends  the  skies, 

The  tower-like  summits  of  the  mountain  shore. 
There  are  briefer  references  in  such  phrases  as,  "  the  hills  of 


154  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

Cheviot,"  "the  thyme-clad  mountain,"  "the  mountains 
gray,"  "Old  Snowden,"  "Snowden's  hoary  side,"  "the  curv- 
ing mountain's  craggy  brow,"  which  serve  at  least  to  show 
that  Mickle  was  not  unconscious  of  the  scenery  about  him. 
One  or  two  lines  indicate  the  effect  of  the  sea  on  his  mind. 
As  he  stood  on  Almada  Hill  and  looked  out  over  old  Ocean, 


it  was 


By  human  eye  untempted,  unexplored, 
An  awful  solitude, 

the  last  dim  wave,  in  boundless  space 
Involved  and  lost^ 


that  held  his  impatient  imagination.  Even  so  brief  a  passage 
serves  to  illustrate  the  awakened  curiosity,  the  new  sense  of 
pleasure  in  the  infinite  and  the  unknown,  that  characterized 
the  romantic  impulse.  Another  modern  note  in  Mickle  is 
his  interest  in  moonlight  and  stars.  There  are  several  pic- 
turesque descriptive  lines,  as, 

When  sudden,  o'er  the  fir-crown'd  hill 
The  full  orb'd  moon  arose.* 

How  bright,  emerging  o'er  yon  broom-clad  height 
The  silver  empress  of  the  night  appears. ^ 

While  on  the  distant  east 
Led  by  her  starre,  the  homed  moone  looks  o'er 
The  bending  forest,  and  with  rays  increast 
Ascends. "^ 

The  star  of  evening  glimmers  o'er  the  dale 
And  leads  the  silent  host  of  heaven  along,  s 

In  spite  of  the  classical  note  in  such  a  phrase  as  "silver 
empress"  these  lines  show  not  only  genuine  pleasure  in  the 

1  "Almada  Hill,"  1.  330. 

2  "The  Sorceress,"  st.  4.  4  "Syr  Martyn,"  ii,  31. 

3  "Elegy,"  St.  4.  5  "Pollio,"  st.  3. 


NEW  ATTITUDE  TOWARD  NATURE  155 

loveliness  of  night,  but  also  first-hand  knowledge  of  its 
phenomena.  Closeness  of  observation  is  further  indicated  in 
the  lines  on  birds,  as  in  the  description  of  the  "sootie  black- 
bird," that  chants  his  shrill  vespers  from  the  topmost  spray 
of  some  tall  tree,  or  of  the  eagle  that  sails  through  the  sky 
with  "wide-spread  wings  unmov'd"  till  suddenly  he  "sheer 
descends"  on  the  brow  of  Snowdon. 

In  his  representation  of  flowers  Mickle  notes  the  "daisie- 
whitened  plain,"  and  "the  white  and  yellow  flowers  that  love 
the  dank,"  but  he  was  especially  attracted  by  flowers  growing 
among  rocks  or  upon  cliffs.  One  close  observation  is  of  the 
twinkling  lines  of  gossamer  that  on  summer  mornings  hang 
from  spray  to  spray. 

Mickle' s  poems  show  a  genuine  love  of  Nature.     He 

abounds  in  reminiscences  of  his  happy  youth 

By  the  banks  of  the  crystal-streamed  Esk, 
Where  the  Wauchope  her  yellow  wave  joins. ^ 

His  chief  use  of  Nature  is  in  the  passages  where  he  gives  these 

early    associations,    and    in    the    many    similitudes    in  his 

"Elegies."     He  always  sees  Nature  in  a  pathetic  or  joyous 

union  with  past  experiences  in  his  own  hfe  or  in  that  of  others. 

Grainger's  chief  poem,  "The  Sugar  Cane,"  appeared  in 

1764.     The  theme  and  outline  are  presented  in  the  first  four 

lines: 

\Vhat  soil  the  cane  affects;  what  care  demands; 
Beneath  what  signs  to  plant;  what  ills  await; 
How  the  hot  nectar  best  to  crystallize; 
And  Afric's  sable  progeny  to  treat. 

Grainger  recognizes  as  his  poetical  masters,  Maro,  the  "  pas- 
toral Dyer"  ("The  Fleece"),  "Pomona's  bard"  ("Cyder"), 
Smart  ("The  Hop  Garden"),  and  Somerville  ("The  Chace"). 
"The  Sugar  Cane"  is  a  purely  didactic  poem  and  is  no  real 

J  "Eskdale  Braes,"  st.  i. 


156  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

contribution  to  the  new  feeling  toward  Nature.     The  first 
part  of  the  "Ode  to  Sohtude,"  a  long  ode  beginning, 

O  Solitude,  Romantic  maid, 
is  another  example  of  the  sentimental  view  of  Nature,  with 
frequent  and  obvious  imitations  of  Milton;  but  the  last  half 
of  the  poem  declares  that  only  the  old  and  feeble  should  seek 
the  solitude  of  the  country,  that  shades  are  no  medicine  for 
a  troubled  mind,  and,  in  general,  that  the  proper  business  of 
mankind  is  man. 

Chronologically  Macpherson's  "Poems  of  Ossian"  belong 
in  the  five  years  before  the  publication  of  Percy's  '^Reliques" 
(1765),  and  they  are  a  part  of  the  same  general  stream  of 
influence,  the  revival  of  folklore.  These  poems  are  epic  in 
character,  their  aim  being  the  celebration  of  the  exploits  of 
Celtic  heroes.  They  are  of  importance  in  this  study  because 
the  adventures  of  Fingal,  Ossian,  Oscar,  and  Gaul  are 
throughout  closely  associated  with  natural  scenery  of  a  wild 
and  romantic  sort.^  Mist-covered  mountains,  storm-swept 
skies,  rough  streams,  desolate  shores,  dim  moonlight  nights, 
are  the  most  frequent  scenic  details,  and  they  are  so  wrought 
into  the  story  that  the  human  tragedy  and  the  scene  where  it 
was  enacted  cannot  be  thought  of  apart.  The  three  ways 
in  which  Nature  is  used  in  these  poems,  as  dramatic  back- 
ground, in  similitudes,  and  in  apostrophes,  will  serve  to  illus- 
trate both  the  prominence  given  to  Nature  and  the  close 
union  between  human  emotions  and  the  varying  phenomena 
of  the  external  world.  A  fine  example  of  a  bright  description 
to  usher  in  a  sudden  contrasting  portent  of  disaster  is  in  the 
opening  lines  of  "Temora": 

The  blue  waves  of  Erin  roll  in  light.  The  mountains  are  covered 
with  day.  Trees  shake  their  dusky  heads  in  the  breeze.  Gray  torrents 
pour  their  noisy  streams.  Two  green  hills,  with  aged  oaks,  surround  a 
narrow  plain.     The  blue  course  of  a  stream  is  there. 

I  See  Bailey  Saunders,  "Life  and  Letters  of  James  Macpherson,"  p.  14. 


NEW  ATTITUDE  TOWARD  NATURE  157 

The  song  that  was  "  lovely,  but  sad,  and  left  silence  in  Carric- 
Thura,"  has  an  autumn  picture  as  its  fit  setting: 

Autumn  is  dark  on  the  mountains;  gray  mist  rests  on  the  hills.  The 
whirlwind  is  heard  on  the  heath.  Dark  rolls  the  river  through  the  nar- 
row plain.  A  tree  stands  alone  on  the  hill  and  marks  the  slumbering 
Connal.  The  leaves  whirl  round  with  the  wind  and  strew  the  graves  of 
the  dead.^ 

The  description  of  the  desolation  of  Balclutha  is  the 
prelude  to  the  song  of  mourning  for  the  unhappy  Moina.^ 
The  use  of  Nature  in  apostrophes  is  characteristic  of  the 
Ossian  poems.  Of  these  the  most  famous  is  the  address  to 
the  sun.^  There  are  frequent  apostrophes  to  winds,  streams, 
and  tempests,  to  stars,  and  especially  to  the  moon.  Two 
good  examples  are  the  poet's  address  to  the  evening  star  in 
"The  Songs  of  Selma,"  and  to  the  moon  in  "Dar  Thula." 
Of  these  the  second  may  be  quoted  as  fairly  typical: 

Daughter  of  heaven,  fair  art  thou !  the  silence  of  thy  face  is  pleasant ! 
Thou  comest  forth  in  loveliness.  The  stars  attend  thy  blue  course  in 
the  east.  The  clouds  rejoice  in  thy  presence,  O  Moon!  they  brighten 
their  dark-brown  sides.     Who  is  Hke  thee  in  heaven,  Hght  of  the  silent 

night  ?     The  stars  are  ashamed  in  thy  presence But  thou  thyself 

shalt  fail  one  night,  and  leave  thy  blue  path  in  heaven.     The  stars  will 

then  lift  their  heads Thou  art  now  clothed  with  thy  brightness. 

Look  from  thy  gates  in  the  sky.  Burst  the  cloud,  O  wind!  that  the 
daughter  of  night  may  look  forth;  that  the  shaggy  mountains  may 
brighten,  and  the  ocean  roll  its  white  waves  in  light. 

It  will  be  observed  that  in  almost  every  apostrophe  there 
is  beautiful  external  description  together  with  an  underlying 
analogy  to  the  thought  of  the  poem.  In  the  passages  quoted 
above,  the  triumphant  brightness  of  the  moon  in  her  blue 
path,  and  the  suggestion  of  the  coming  night  when  she  shall 
fail  in  heaven,  are  but  types  of  the  beauty  of  Dar  Thula  and 

I  "Carric-Thura." 
^"Carthon." 


158  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

of  the  day  when,  though  the  winds  of  spring  shall  be  abroad, 
though  the  flowers  shall  shake  their  heads  on  the  green  hills, 
and  the  woods  shall  wave  their  growing  leaves,  the  white- 
bosomed  maiden  shall  not  again  move  in  the  steps  of  her 
loveliness. 

Dr.  Blair  in  his  full  study  of  the  similitudes  of  Ossian 
admits  that  they  are  too  "thick-sown,"  and  that  they  are 
drawn  from  a  narrow  range  of  objects.  But  he  claims,  on 
the  other  hand,  that  the  similes  have  the  exceptional  vividness 
that  comes  from  first-hand  observation,^  and  that  they  show 
an  imaginative  perception  of  subtle  analogies.^  Dr.  Blair's 
recognition  of  beauty  and  congruity  was  so  quickened  by  his 
partisanship  of  Ossian  that  his  conclusions  usually  need 
to  be  scrutinized  in  the  cold  light  of  facts.  The  subtlety  of 
the  analogies  certainly  often  escapes  the  ordinary  reader,  but 
no  one  can  fail  to  observe  the  pathetic  beauty  of  the  little 
pictures  into  which  the  similitudes  are  often  elaborated. 
Music,  for  instance,  is  compared  to  "the  rising  breeze,  that 
whirls  at  first  the  thistle's  beard,  then  flies  dark-shadowy  over 
the  grass."  Again  a  song  is  "like  the  voice  of  a  summer 
breeze,  when  it  lifts  the  head  of  flowers  and  curls  the  lakes  and 
streams."  The  heroes  contended  "like  gales  of  spring,  as 
they  fly  along  the  hill,  and  bend  by  turns  the  feebly-whistling 
grass."  The  warriors  are  "bright  as  the  sunshine  before 
a  storm;  when  the  west  wind  collects  the  clouds,  and  Morven 

1  Dr.  Blair  has  a  significant  comment  on  the  truth  in  the  poems  of 
Ossian.  "The  introduction  of  foreign  images  betrays  a  poet  copying  not 
from  nature,  but  from  other  writers.  Hence  so  many  lions  and  tigers,  and 
eagles  and  serpents  which  we  meet  with  in  the  similes  of  modern  poets; 
as  if  these  animals  had  acquired  some  right  to  a  place  in  poetical  compari- 
sons for  ever,  because  employed  by  ancient  authors.  They  employed  them 
with  propriety,  as  objects  generally  known  in  their  country;  but  they  are 
absurdly  used  for  illustration  by  us,  who  know  them  only  at  second-hand, 
or  by  description." 

2  Blair's  "Critical  Dissertation,"  in  Tauchnitz  ed.  of  the  "Ossian  Poems." 


NEW  ATTITUDE  TOWARD  NATURE  159 

echoes  over  all  her  oaks."  In  these  and  many  similar  com- 
parisons we  see  how  the  beauty  of  the  suggested  natural 
picture  led  the  poet  into  a  use  of  details  not  necessary 
for  his  illustrations.  The  importance  of  the  poetry  of 
Ossian  in  the  evolution  of  the  poetry  of  Nature  rests  on 
its  early  date,  its  close  interweaving  of  human  emotions 
and  natural  scenes,  and  its  abundant  and  appreciative  use 
of  wild,  free  Nature. 

Percy's ''  Reliques  "  appeared  in  1765.  The  pubHcation  of 
these  ballads  was  of  great  importance  to  the  cause  of  the 
romantic  revival  in  general.  The  ballads  were,  however,  of 
somewhat  less  significance  in  their  influence  on  the  new  feel- 
ing toward  Nature.  A  ballad  would  never  interrupt  the 
story  for  a  description,  and  there  would,  of  course,  never  be 
any  hint  of  a  philosophy  of  Nature.  But  throughout  the 
ballads  there  are  casual  touches  of  description  showing  a 
genuine  love  for  some  forms  of  Nature,  especially  the  forest, 
green  hills,  and  moors.  "Upon  the  wide  moors,"  "on 
moors  so  broad,"  "over  the  fields  so  brown,"  "over  the  lea," 
"over  the  downs,"  are  characteristic  phrases.  The  castles 
are  usually  on  a  hill  and  command  a  wide  view.'  The  love 
of  the  hills  is  indicated  by  such  little  pictures  as 

Robin  sat  on  a  gude  grene  hill, 
Keipand  a  flock  of  fie.^ 
or, 

Lord  Thomas  and  fair  Annet 

Sate  a'  day  on  a  hill, 

When  night  was  cum  and  sun  was  sett 

They  had  not  talkt  their  fill.3 

But  it  is  the  forest  that  most  often  appears. 

'  See  "Child  of  Elle,"  "Edom  o'  Gordon,"  "Hardyknute,"  and  others. 

»  "Robin  and  Makyne." 

3  "Lord  Thomas  and  Fair  Annet." 


l6o  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

Until  they  came  to  the  merry  green  wood, 
Where  they  had  gladdest  bee/ 

gives  the  fresh,  open-air  setting  of  most  of  these  tales  of  love 

and  heroism; 

Mery  it  was  in  the  grene  forest 
Amonge  the  leves  grene  ;^ 

All  in  the  merr}'e  month  of  May, 
When  greene  buds  they  were  sweUinj^ 

And  wee'U  away  to  the  greene  forest;^ 

Gil  Morice  sate  in  gude  grene  wode. 
He  whistled  and  he  sang;s 

In  summer  time  when  leaves  grow  greene 
And  blossoms  bedecke  the  tree;*^ 

To  the  greene  forest  so  pleasant  and  faire;^ 

He  myght  have  dwelt  in  grene  foreste. 
Under  the  shadowes  greene;^ 

The  woodweele  sang,  and  wold  not  cease 
Sitting  upon  the  spraye, 
Soe  lowde,  he  wakened  Robin  Hood 
In  the  greenwood  where  he  lay;^ 

are  typical  forest  pictures. '°  But  the  gude  green  wood  is  not 
always  fresh  and  blooming,  as  we  see  from  occasional  lines 
such  as 

I  "Robin  Hood  and  Guy  of  Gisborne." 
a  "Adam  Bell." 

3  "Barbara  Allan's  Cruelty." 

4  "The  Marriage  of  Sir  Gawaine." 

5  "Gil  Morice." 

6  "King  Edward  IV  and  Tanner  of  Tamworth." 

7  "The  King  and  the  Miller  of  Mansfield." 

8  "Adam  Bell." 

9  "Robin  Hood  and  Guy  of  Gisborne." 

10  For  the  forest  in  mediaeval  poetry  see  Vernon  Lee,  "Euphorion,"  p.  122 


NEW  ATTITUDE  TOWARD  NATURE  i6i 

Now  loud  and  shrill  blew  the  wesdin'  wind, 
"Sair  beat  the  heavy  shower;^ 

About  Yule  quhen  the  wind  blew  cule;' 

Oft  have  I  ridden  thro'  Stiriing  town 
In  the  wind  both  and  the  weit;^ 

No  shimmering  sun  here  ever  shone; 
No  halesome  breeze  here  ever  blew;3 

Trees  are  not  often  mentioned  individually  except  the  oak 
and  the  willow,  the  latter  always  representing  sorrow. 

There  is  occasional  use  of  Nature  in  simple  comparisons, 
as,  "White  as  evir  the  snaw  lay  on  the  dike,"  ''drye  as  a  clot 
of  claye,"  "light  of  foot  as  stag  that  runs  in  forest  wild,"  his 
"een  like  gray  gosehawk's  stair'd  wyld." 

There  are  also  some  homely  pictures  of  everyday  country 
life,  as  in  "Take  Thy  Old  Cloak  about  Thee,"  "Plain  Truth 
and  Bhnd  Ignorance"  (Somersetshire  dialect),  "The  Ew- 
Bughts  Marion,"  and  "The  Auld  Good  Man." 

The  use  of  Nature  in  the  "  Ballads,"  slight  and  limited  as  it 
is,  gives  an  impression  of  vivid  reality.  It  is  what  Schiller 
would  call  the  simple  as  opposed  to  the  sentimental  love  of 
Nature,  the  first  being  characteristic  of  early  races  who  are 
Nature,  and  the  last  of  the  moderns  who  seek  Nature.^  On 
eighteenth-century  readers  who,  as  a  class,  knew  little  about 
the  external  world  outside  their  parks  and  gardens,  the  effect 
of  the  descriptive  touches  in  the  "Ballads"  would  be  to  lead 
them  into  lovely  regions  where  Nature  was  as  spontaneous 
and  free  as  the  knights  and  fair  ladies  themselves. 

Michael  Bruce  imitated  Milton's  "Lycidas"  in  an  elegy 
called  "Daphnis"  and  imitated  Gray  in  some  "Runic  Odes," 

1  "Hardyknute." 

2  "Young  Waters." 

3  "TheHeirof  Linne." 

4  Schiller,  "Ueber  die  Naive  und  Sentimentale  Dichtung." 


i62  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

which  were  lauded  as  "truly  Runic  and  truly  Grayan."  In 
these  poems  the  use  of  Nature  is  slight  and  conventional. 
His  "Lochleven"  (1766)  is  more  significant.  In  this  poem 
he  celebrates 

The  pastoral  mountains,  the  poetic  streams 

of  his  native  land.     He  finds  all  Nature  full  of  joy. 

The  vales,  the  vocal  hills, 
The  woods,  the  waters,  and  the  heart  of  man 
Send  out  a  general  song;   'tis  beauty  all 
To  poet's  eye  and  music  to  his  ear. 

Clouds  arrested  in  their  swift  course  by  lofty  mountains,  lakes 
that  hold  a  mirror  to  the  sky,  songsters  twittering  o'er  their 
young,  waters  glowing  beneath  western  clouds,  hoary-headed 
Grampius  clad  in  snow,  are  counted  among  his  pleasures. 
He  prefers  life  in  the  country,  for  there 

All  in  the  sacred,  sweet,  sequestered  vale 
Of  sohtude,  the  secret  primrose-path 
Of  rural  life,  he  dwells. 

He  loved  especially  the  Gairney,  a  stream  that  flows  into 
Loch  Leven,  because,  as  a  lad,  he  lay  on  its  banks  and  com- 
posed poetry.  He  speaks  with  evident  knowledge  of  other 
streams,  the  gulfy  Po,  "slow  and  silent  among  its  waving 
reeds,"  and  the  rapid  Queech  rushing  impetuous  over  broken 
steeps.  It  is  natural  that  Bruce  should  know,  as  he  did, 
especially  water  birds.  The  "wild-shrieking  gull,"  "patient 
heron,"  "dull  bittern,"  the  "clamorous  mew,"  and  the 
"slow-wing'd  crane"  moving  heavily  along  the  shore,  were 
doubtless  birds  that  he  had  often  seen.  Bruce's  pleasure  in 
wide  views  is  shown  by  this  poem,  "Lochleven,"  for  it  is  a 
description  of  the  prospect  spread  out  before  him  as  he  stands 
on  "Mount  Lomond."  Bruce's  "Elegy"  was  written  when 
he  felt  himself  dying  of  consumption.     It  represents   his 


NEW  ATTITUDE  TOWARD  NATURE  163 

delight  in  all  forms  of  Nature's  life  and  his  deep  melancholy 
at  bidding  farewell  to  the  spring-time  world. 

By  a  process  of  selection  we  find  in  Bruce's  poems  his  real 
love  for  the  outer  world.  This  is  not,  however,  the  impres- 
sion made  by  his  poems  as  a  whole.  His  knowledge  of 
Nature  was  limited,  and  his  expression  was  often  rigid  and 
formal.  He  died  young,  before  he  had  really  attained  the 
mastery  of  his  own  thought,  and  his  importance  lies  not  so 
much  in  actual  accomplishment  as  in  scattered  suggestions  of 
his  tendencies  and  possibilities. 

Bruce's  most  intimate  friend  was  John  Logan,  who,  in 
1770,  pubhshed  an  edition  of  Bruce's  poems  and  included 
some  "wrote  by  other  authors."  In  1781,  when  he  published 
his  own  works,  he  laid  claim  to  a  number  of  the  poems  that 
had  appeared  in  the  edition  of  Bruce's  poems  in  1770. 
Among  these  the  most  important  was  "The  Cuckoo,"^  a 
poem  well  worth  the  sharp  controversy  waged  over  it  by  the 
respective  friends  of  the  two  authors.  There  is  nothing  else 
in  this  period  that  rings  so  fresh  and  clear  as  this  little  ode. 
One  stanza  may  be  quoted  to  illustrate  its  beauty,  its  sim- 
plicity, and  naturalness.  This  stanza  is  also  of  peculiar  in- 
terest because  it  so  definitely  foreshadows  Wordsworth's  "  To 
the  Cuckoo." 

The  schoolboy,  wandering  through  the  wood, 

To  pull  the  primrose  gay, 
Starts,  the  new  voice  of  spring  to  hear, 

And  imitates  thy  lay. 

Logan's  other  poems,  though  he  has  nothing  equal  to  the 
cuckoo  song  in  spontaneity  and  exquisite  simplicity,  are  yet 
of  real  value.  His  "Braes  of  Yarrow"  is  an  effective  pres- 
entation of  the  ancient,  sorrow-laden  Yarrow  motif.     As  is 

I  The  poem  is  quoted  entire  by  Gosse  in  his  "Eighteenth  Century 
Literature." 


OF   THE 

UNIVERSITY 

OF 


1 64  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

fitting  in  a  ballad,  the  touches  of  description  are  of  the  briefest 
sort,  but  the  forest,  the  bonny  braes,  and  the  sounding  stream 
are  felt  through  all  the  plaintive  story.  "  Ossian's  Hymn  to 
the  Sun"  is  a  poetical  paraphrase  of  the  famous  apostrophe 
in  ''Balclutha."  It  has  some  fine  lines,  but  is  inferior  in 
strength  to  the  original.  The  ''Ode  Written  in  Spring"  is 
a  laudation  of  a  certain  fair  Maria  in  the  true  classical  fashion, 
but  the  new  note  is  struck  in  the  first  five  stanzas  descriptive 
of  spring. 

The  loosen'd  streamlet  loves  to  stray 
And  echo  down  the  dale. 

The  hills  uplift  their  summits  green, 

The  cuckoo  in  the  wood  unseen, 

At  eve  the  primrose  path  along, 
The  milkmaid  shortens  with  a  song, 
Her  solitary  way, 

The  sudden  fields  put  on  the  flowers, 

are  lines  showing  fresh  observation  and  easy,  natural  expres- 
sion. Another  passage  characterizes  autumn  as  "the  Sab- 
bath of  the  year."  Limited  in  compass  as  is  Logan's  good 
work  it  is  of  value  because  marked  by  exceptional  purity  and 
sweetness. 

Most  of  James  Graeme's  poems  were  written  before  he 
was  twenty.  His  tastes  are  thus  referred  to  by  his  friend, 
Dr.  Robert  Anderson: 

A  passion  for  romantic  fiction  and  fabulous  history,  appeared  in  him 

very  early  in  life Of  the  Gothic,  Celtic  and  Oriental  mythology 

he  was  a  warm  admirer;    and  frequendy  attempted  imitations  of  the 

wild  and  flowery  fictions  of  the  northern  and  eastern  nations 

Like  other  votaries  of  the  Muses,  he  was  passionately  fond  of  rural 
scenery,  and  delighted  in  walking  alone  in  the  fields. 


NEW  ATTITUDE  TOWARD  NATURE  165 

His  chief  poems  of  Nature  are  some  descriptive  elegies. 
Occasionally  there  is  a  fairly  good  line,  as 

The  torrents,  whiten'd  with  descending  rain, 
or 

The  blue-gray  mist  that  hovers  o'er  the  hill, 

showing  at  least  a  hint  of  first-hand  observation.  But  on  the 
whole  the  poems  are  a  composite  of  phrases  belonging  to  the 
typical  poetry  of  sentimental  melancholy.  His  characteristic 
attitude  toward  Nature  is  shown  by  his  constant  preference 
for  chilly  midnight  when  howlets  scream  and  ravens  croak, 
and  when  he,  with  pensive  care,  tunes  the  voice  of  woe  and 
sheds  "teary  torrents"  over  grass-green  graves.  One  poem, 
on  "Curhng,"  is,  however,  quite  different  in  tone,  for  it  is 
a  crudely  realistic  and  technical  description  of  the  game 
and  the  peasants  who  engage  in  it.  The  tastes  of  Graeme 
and  his  attempts  are  of  more  significance  than  his  actual 
work,  which  is  of  little  value. 

The  bent  of  Goldsmith's  mind  was  toward  the  study  of  man 
in  social  relations.  His  use  of  Nature  is  accessory  and  limited. 
In  "The  Traveller"  (1764)  the  real  interest  is  in  manners 
and  customs.'  When  the  pilgrim  is  in  the  Alps  with  a  wide 
prospect  before  him,  it  is  the  thought  of  man's  grand  heritage 
that  impresses  him.  In  the  account  of  Switzerland  there  is 
only  a  vague  general  description  of  the  country,  but  a  full, 
sympathetic  description  of  the  peasant.  So,  too,  in  Italy, 
France,  Holland,  and  even  in  England.  In  the  few  descrip- 
tions that  do  occur  there  are  occasional  lines  indicative  of 
first-hand  observation,  as  in  this  picturesque  couplet  on  the 
scenery  in  Holland: 

The  slow  canal,  the  yellow-blossomed  vale, 
The  willow-tufted  bank,  the  gliding  sail. 

I  In  this  poem  about  16  per  cent,  of  the  lines  have  something  to  do 
with  Nature.  In  Wordsworth's  "Descriptive  Sketches"  over  50  per  cent, 
of  the  lines  treat  of  Nature. 


1 66        NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

We  also  find  effective  combinations  of  geographical  names 
that  give  a  certain  charm  of  remoteness  and  melody;  and 
there  is  a  sense  of  space  and  movement  conveyed  by  the 
rapidly  presented  and  wide  landscapes. 

In  "  The  Deserted  Village  "  (1770)  the  central  thought  is  still 
man,  and  the  purpose  didactic,  but  there  is  effective  though 
not  abundant  use  of  Nature.  Even  here,  however,  it  is  only 
Nature  inseparably  associated  with  man.  Nine-tenths  of  the 
poem  has  to  do  directly  with  human  nature.  The  other  tenth 
merely  gives  charming  pictures  of  the  country  close  about  a 
village.  Scattered  lines  are  of  perfect  workmanship,  as  that 
one  descriptive  of  the  straggling  fence, 

With  blossomed  furze  unprofitably  gay, 
and 

The  breezy  covert  of  the  warbling  grove. 

In  the  picture  of  desolation  the  details  are  selected  with 
delicacy  and  precision.  Each  touch  helps  the  general  impres- 
sion. The  value  of  such  work  becomes  more  apparent  when 
put  into  contrast  with  the  description  of  torrid  climes.  In 
Goldsmith  and  in  Thomson  what  was  seen  at  first  hand  had 
the  grace  and  power  of  truth,  but  scenes  in  remote  lands, 
known  only  through  the  distorting  spectacles  of  books,  were 
credited  with  an  odd  mixture  of  incongruous  details.  Except 
for  one  use  of  mountains  in  a  simile  there  is  no  indication 
that  Goldsmith  knew  any  but  tame  scenery. 

In  general  we  may  say  that  Goldsmith  showed  a  direct, 
simple-hearted  pleasure  in  the  open-air  world,  that  he  was 
a  sympathetic  observer  of  the  more  obvious  facts  of  Nature, 
and  that  he  had  a  bright,  easy  way  of  recording  those  facts. 
The  simplicity  of  his  work  is  combined  with  a  quick  percep- 
tion of  artistic  form.  But  he  has  hardly  a  touch  of  what 
Matthew  x\rnold  calls  "natural  magic,"  and  he  is  in  no  sense 


NEW  ATTITUDE  TOWARD  NATURE  167 

a  revealer.  He  was  on  the  surface  of  things.  Of  the 
higher  ministry  of  Nature  to  man's  spiritual  needs  he  knew 
nothing.  *' 

In  his  prose  works  Goldsmith  has  several  vigorous  attacks 
on  falseness  and  affectation  in  poetry.  In  1759  he  charac- 
terized Italian  poetry  at  its  lowest  ebb,  as  '^no  longer  an  imita- 
tion of  what  we  see,  but  of  what  a  visionary  might  wish.  The 
zephyrs  breathe  a  most  exquisite  perfume;  the  trees  wear 
eternal  verdure;  fauns,  dryads,  and  hamadryads  stand  ready 
to  fan  the  sultry  shepherdess  ....  who  is  so  simple  and 
innocent  as  often  to  have  no  meaning."  This  attack  on  the 
falseness  and  affectation  of  Italian  poetry  might  be  quoted 
verbatim  by  a  modern  critic  of  the  popular  eighteenth- 
century  pastorals.  Goldsmith  also  praised  Gay's  poems 
saying  that  "he  has  hit  upon  the  true  spirit  of  pastoral 
poetry."  Goldsmith  has  other  keen  critical  remarks  that 
point  in  the  direction  of  the  new  spirit  but  they  do  not  bear 
directly  on  the  study  of  Nature.  He  is  important  chiefly 
because  of  his  interest  in  man  as  man,  his  close  and  sympa- 
thetic delineation  of  the  poor  and  ignorant. 

In  1766  James  Beattie  had  written  150  lines  of  "The 
Minstrel."  The  poem  was  then  laid  aside  for  the  "  Essay  on 
Truth"  and  not  taken  up  again  till  1770.  The  first  book 
was  published  anonymously  in  1771.  The  second  book 
appeared  with  the  author's  name  in  1774.  The  poem  consists 
of  122  Spenserian  stanzas.  Its  design  is  "to  trace  the  prog- 
ress of  a  poetical  genius  ....  till  that  period  when  he 
may  be  supposed  capable  of  appearing  in  the  world  as  a 
minstrel,'"  and  its  theme  is  really  the  effect  of  mountain 
scenery  on  a  poetically  sensitive  mind.  The  child,  Edwin, 
is  brought  up  in  a  remote  village  among  the  Scotch  hills,  and 
his  genius  is  developed  through  the  varied  influence  of  wild 

I  "The  Minstrel,"  Preface. 


i68  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

natural  scenery  until  he  becomes  ''itinerant  poet  and  musi- 
cian."    As  a  lad  his  chief  pleasure  was  to  follow 

Where  the  maze  of  some  bewilder'd  stream 
To  deep  untrodden  groves  his  footsteps  led. 

He  loved  to  climb  craggy  cliffs 

When  all  in  mist  the  world  below  was  lost. 

WTiat  dreadful  pleasure !  There  to  stand  subUme 

Like  shipwreck'd  mariner  on  desert  coast 

And  view  the  enormous  waste  of  vapour,  toss'd 

In  billows,  lengthening  to  the  horizon  round, 

Now  scoop'd  in  gulfs,  with  mountains  now  emboss'd. 

And  oft  he  traced  the  uplands,  to  sun^ey, 
When  o'er  the  sky  advanced  the  kindling  dawn, 
The  crimson  cloud,  blue  main  and  mountain  gray. 

He  was 

Fond  of  each  gentle,  and  each  dreadful  scene. 
In  darkness  and  in  storm  he  found  delight. 

He  listened 

with  pleasing  dread,  to  the  deep  roar 
Of  the  wide-weltering  waves. 

When  storms  came  up  in  black  array 

He  hastened  from  the  haunt  of  man, 
Along  the  trembling  wilderness  to  stray. 

He  visited  haunted  streams  by  moonlight  and  let  his  imagina- 
tion dwell  on  graves  and  ghosts.  His  soul  was  possessed  by 
the  "mystic  transports"  born  of  "melancholy  and  solitude." 
He  scanned  all  Nature  with  a  "curious  and  romantic  eye," 
and  his  imagination  was  stirred  by  "old  heroic  ditties,"  by 

What'er  of  lore  tradition  could  supply 
From  gothic  tale,  or  song,  or  fable  old. 

The  second  stage  of  Edwin's  education  comes  through  his 
companionship  with  a  wise  hermit,  who,  like  Wordsworth's 


NEW  ATTITUDE  TOWARD  NATURE  169 

Solitary,  had  "sought  for  glory  in  the  paths  of  guile,"  but 
finally,  dissatisfied  with  success  and  stung  with  remorse,  had 
hidden  himself  in  a  deep  retired  abode  in  the  mountains, 
there  to  commune  with  Nature.  From  a  lofty  eminence 
Edwin  chanced  to  look  down  one  day  upon  this  savage  dell, 
shut  in  by  mountains  and  rocks  piled  on  rocks,  and  he  saw 
the  "one  cultivated  spot"  with  its  garden  of  roses  and  herbs, 
and  he  heard  the  voice  of  the  hermit  soliloquizing  on  the 
vanity  of  human  life.  In  subsequent  interviews  the  hermit 
discoursed  learnedly  on  history,  art,  and  sciences. 

The  intrinsic  value  of  this  poem  is  not  great.  It  is  impor- 
tant because  of  the  conception  which  it  embodies.  Edwin 
finds  in  Nature  adequate  instruction  and  inspiration;  the 
hermit,  adequate  consolation.     His  words  are. 

Hail,  awful  scenes,  that  calm  the  troubled  breast, 
And  woo  the  weary  to  profound  repose ! 
Can  passion's  wildest  uproar  lay  to  rest, 
And  whisper  comfort  to  the  man  of  woes  ? 

Now  the  power  of  wild  scenery  over  the  plastic  mind  is 
exactly  Wordsworth's  idea  in  his  account  of  the  Wanderer's 
youth,  ^  and  the  power  of  Nature  to  minister  to  a  mind 
diseased  is  one  of  the  leading  thoughts  in  his  account  of  the 
Solitary,^  while  the  thought  of  tracing  a  child's  experiences 
with  Nature  until  under  her  tutelage  he  becomes  a  poet  is  the 
fundamental  idea  of  the  "Prelude."^  It  is  certainly  of  more 
than  merely  curious  interest  thus  to  find  in  the  rather  vague, 
ineffective  stanzas  of  the  earlier  poet  general  conceptions 
which  afterward  appear  as  the  ruling  ideas  of  the  poet  con- 
fessedly greatest  in  his  treatment  of  Nature. 

The  character  of  Edwin  was  autobiographic  and  shows 

1  Wordsworth,  "The  Excursion,"  i,  108-300. 

2  Ibid.,  iv,  466-600. 

3  Wordsworth,  "The  Prelude,"  "Advertisement." 


I70  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

Beattie's  personal  love  of  Nature.     In  a  letter  to  the  Dowager 
Lady  Forbes,  October,  1772,  he  wrote: 

I  find  you  are  willing  to  suppose  that,  in  Edwin,  I  have  given  only 
a  picture  of  myself  as  I  was  in  my  younger  days.  I  confess  the  supposi- 
tion is  not  groundless.  I  have  made  him  take  pleasure  in  the  scenes  in 
which  I  took  pleasure,  and  entertain  sentiments  similar  to  those  of 
which,  even  in  my  early  youth,  I  had  repeated  experience.  The  scenery 
of  a  mountainous  country,  the  ocean,  the  sky,  thoughtfulness  and  retire- 
ment, and  sometimes  melancholy  objects  and  ideas,  had  charms  in  my 
eyes,  even  when  I  was  a  school  boy;  and  at  a  time  when  I  was  so  far 
from  being  able  to  express,  that  I  did  not  understand  my  own  feelings, 
or  perceive  the  tendency  of  my  own  pursuits  and  amusements. 

Beattie  never  lost  this  keen  delight  in  Nature.  When  he 
was  schoolmaster  at  Fordoun,  at  the  foot  of  the  Grampian 
Hills,  his  greatest  pleasure  w^as  found  in  the  neighboring 
mountains  and  wooded  glens.  His  biographer  also  says  that 
he  would  frequently  "pass  the  whole  night  among  the  fields, 
gazing  on  the  sky,  and  observing  the  various  aspects  it  as- 
sumed till  the  return  of  day."  Beattie's  poems  bear  con- 
clusive evidence  of  his  love  of  Nature  in  all  her  forms. 
Mountains,  and  the  sea,  wild  scenes  of  various  sorts,  storms, 
torrents,  night,  clouds,  the  sky,  streams,  meadows,  groves, 
summer  and  winter,  wide  views,  are  regarded  with  genuine 
delight.  But  there  are  certain  curious  limitations.  There 
are  almost  no  specific  flowers,  birds,  or  trees  mentioned  in 
all  this  abundant  study  of  the  external  w^orld.  This  use  of 
the  general  instead  of  the  specific  is  one  element  of  an  effect 
too  often  perceived,  an  indefiniteness  of  outline,  a  vague 
blurring  of  edges,  the  result  of  which  is  not  mysterious  sug- 
gestiveness  but  simply  dimness  and  confusion.  There  is  also 
an  unexpected  feebleness  of  vocabulary  and  lack  of  direct 
observation.  The  old  word  "murmur,"  for  instance,  is 
applied  with  wearisome  insistence  to  springs,  rills,  water,  the 
ocean,  pines,  woods,  groves,  and  gales.     So  the  interest  in 


NEW  ATTITUDE  TOWARD  NATURE  171 

wil  d  Nature,  when  analyzed,  shows  a  rather  monotonous  and 
undiscriminating  succession  of  cliffs  and  precipices.  But 
it  would  be  unfair  to  press  these  limitations  too  far.  There 
are  many  true  observations  happily  presented,  as  in  the  fol- 
lowing lines  which  are  selected  as  illustrative: 

AVhile  waters,  woods,  and  winds  in  concert  join. 

The  wild  brook  babbling  down  the  mountain  side. 

Torrents 
Heard  from  afar  amid  the  lonely  night. 

And  now  the  storm  of  summer  rain  is  over 
And  cool  and  fresh  and  fragrant  is  the  sky. 

When  by  the  winds  of  autumn  driven 
The  scatter'd  clouds  fly  'cross  the  Heaven. 
Oft  have  we  from  some  mountain's  head 
Beheld  the  alternate  light  and  shade 
Sweep  along  the  vale. 

The  scared  owl  on  pinions  gray 
Breaks  from  the  rusthng  boughs 
And  down  the  lone  vale  sails  away 
To  more  profound  repose. 

He  finds  pleasure  in  old  oak  trees  that 

from  the  stormy  promontory  tower 
And  toss  their  giant  arms  amid  the  skies. 

In  winter  he  watches 

The  cloud  stupendous,  from  the  Atlantic  wave 
High  towering,  sail  along  the  horizon  blue. 

Lines  such  as  these  show  knowledge  both  fresh  and  close,  and 
the  expression  is  marked  by  picturesque  effectiveness. 

But  Beattie's  real  contribution  to  the  study  of  Nature  hes, 
as  has  been  indicated,  in  his  own  personal  enthusiasm,  and 
his  steadfast  belief  in  the  effect  of  Nature  on  man.  In  one 
stanza  he  even  set  forth  the  doctrine,  held  to  be  sufficiently 


172  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

startling  forty  years  later  in  Wordsworth's  day,  that  country 

rustics  from  their  familiarity  with  Nature,  gain  a  nicer  sense 

of  moral  purity  than  is  known  among  the  poor  of  a  city.^ 

Upon  all  men  he  urged  the  study  of  Nature  as  a  moral  duty. 

These  charms  shall  work  thy  soul's  eternal  health, 
And  love,  and  gentleness,  and  joy  impart.^ 

The  message  of  Nature  is  one  not  to  be  ignored. 

O  how  canst  thou  renounce  the  boundless  store 

Of  charms  which  Nature  to  her  votary  yields! 

The  warbling  woodland,  the  resounding  shore. 

The  pomp  of  groves,  and  garniture  of  fields; 

All  that  the  genial  ray  of  morning  gilds. 

And  all  that  echoes  to  the  song  of  even. 

All  that  the  mountain's  sheltering  bosom  shields. 

And  all  the  dread  magnificence  of  Heaven, 

O  how  canst  thou  renounce  and  hope  to  be  forgiven  l^ 

Though  less  popular  than  the  "  Essay  on  Truth,"  Beattie's 
"Minstrel"  met  with  almost  immediate  favor.  Lyttleton 
said  to  Mrs.  Montagu  who  sent  him  the  first  book  in  1771 : 

I  read  your  "Minstrel"  last  night,  with  as  much  rapture  as  poetry, 
in  her  noblest,  sweetest  charms,  ever  raised  in  my  soul.  It  seemed 
to  me  that  my  once  most  beloved  minstrel,  Thomson,  was  come  down 

1  "The  Minstrel,"  i,  52. 

2  Ibid.,  10. 

3  Ibid.,  9.  Of  this  stanza  Gray  said  in  a  letter  to  Beattie,  March,  1771: 
"But  this,  of  all  others,  is  my  favorite  stanza.  It  is  true  poetry;  it  is  in- 
spiration; only  (to  show  it  is  mortal)  there  is  one  blemish;  the  word  gar- 
niture suggesting  an  idea  of  dress,  and,  what  is  worse,  of  French  dress." 
Beattie  said  he  had  often  wished  "to  alter  this  same  word,  but  had  not 
been  able  to  hit  upon  a  better." — Dyce,  "Memoir  of  Beattie,"  p.  xxxvii. 

Gray's  praise  of  Beattie  was  faint  compared  to  Beattie's  admiration 
of  Gray.  In  1765  he  declared  that  he  had  "  long  and  passionately  admired" 
Gray's  wridiicis.  He  thought  Gray's  poems  finer  than  those  of  his  con- 
temporaries in  any  nation.  He  thought  his  taste  most  exact,  his  judgment 
most  sound,  and  his  learning  most  extensive.  See  Dyce,  "Memoir  of 
Beattie,"  pp.  xvi,  xviii. 


NEW  ATTITUDE  TOWARD  NATURE  173 

from  heaven,  refined  by  the  converse  of  purer  spirits  than  those  he 
lived  with  here,  to  let  me  hear  him  sing  again  the  beauties  of  virtue.^ 

And  Cowper  wrote  in  1784:  "Though  I  cannot  afford  to 
deal  largely  in  so  expensive  a  commodity  as  books,  I  must 
afford  to  purchase  at  least  the  poetical  works  of  Beattie."' 
Mr.  Dyce  says  that  the  success  of  "The  Minstrel"  (Book 
First)  "was  complete.  The  voice  of  every  critic  was  loud  in 
its  praise;  and  before  the  second  book  appeared,  four  editions 
of  the  first  had  been  dispersed  throughout  the  kingdom."^ 

"The  Minstrel"  is  of  importance  in  the  historical  develop- 
ment of  the  poetry  of  Nature  because  of  the  ideas  it  empha- 
sizes, and  because  its  immediate  popularity  is  an  indication 
of  the  change  in  taste  since  the  beginning  of  the  century. 

Most  of  John  Scott's  poems  were  on  rural  subjects,^  and 
he  is  of  especial  interest  because  of  his  abundant  and  close 
observation  of  natural  facts.  Mr.  Hoole  says  of  him,  "He 
was  certainly  no  servile  copyist  of  the  thoughts  of  others;  for 
living  in  the  country,  and  being  a  close  and  accurate  observer, 

I  Dyce,  "Memoir  of  Beattie,"  p.  xxxvi. 

*  Cowper,  Letter  to  Rev.  William  Unwin,  April,  1784. 

3  Dyce,  "Memoir  of  Beattie,"  p.  xxxv. 

4  His  chief  poems  are,  "Four  Moral  Eclogues"  (1778);  "Four  Elegies" 
(published  1760  but  written  earlier);  "Amwell,  A  Descriptive  Poem" 
(published  1776  but  written  1768);  and  "Odes  and  Amoebaean  Eclogues" 
(1782).  His  "Epistle  on  the  Garden"  and  "Essay  on  Painting"  will  be 
spoken  of  later. 

It  is  interesting  to  note  the  spirit  of  apology  with  which  Scott's  friends 
and  admirers  comment  on  his  choice  of  subjects.  In  such  poetry  there  is 
little  opportunity  for  genius,  for,  says  Mr.  Hoole,  "A  hill,  a  vale,  a  forest, 
a  rivulet,  a  cataract,  can  be  described  only  by  general  terms;  the  hill  must 
swell,  the  vale  sink,  the  rivulet  murmur,  and  the  cataract  foam."  Mr. 
Hoole  recognizes  the  "slight  estimation"  in  which  descriptive  poetry  is 
commonly  held,  but  thinks  there  are  devices  to  render  it  attractive  and 
calls  attention  to  the  skill  with  which  Mr.  Scott  has  made  his  poems  "inter- 
esting by  the  introduction  of  historical  incidents,  apt  illusions,  and  moral 
reflections." 


174  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

he  painted  what  he  saw;"  and  again,  "He  cultivated  the 
knowledge  of  natural  history  and  botany,  which  enabled  him 
to  preserve  the  truth  of  Nature  with  many  discriminating 
touches,  perhaps  not  excelled  by  any  descriptive  poet  since 
the  days  of  Thomson."  It  was  Scott's  avowed  purpose  to 
enrich  poetry  by  the  use  of  many  natural  facts  not  before 
observed.  In  the  introduction  to  the  "  Amoebaean  Eclogues" 
he  said,  "Much  of  the  rural  imagery  which  our  country 
affords,  has  already  been  introduced  in  poetry,  but  many 
obvious  and  pleasing  appearances  seem  to  have  totally 
escaped  notice.  To  describe  these  is  the  business  of  the 
following  Eclogues."  After  this  explicit  announcement,  two 
gentle  youths,  in  responsive  verse,  call  attention  to  over  two 
hundred  rapidly  stated  natural  facts.  A  fact  to  a  line  is 
about  the  average,  as  in  these  lines : 

These  pollard  oaks  their  tawny  leaves  retain, 
These  hardy  hornbeams  yet  unstripped  remain; 
The  wint'ry  groves  all  else  admit  the  view 
Through  naked  stems  of  many  a  varied  hue. 

Old  oaken  stubs  tough  saplings  there  adorn. ^ 

Straight  shoots  of  ash  with  bark  of  glossy  gray, 
Red  cornel  twigs,  and  maple's  russet  spray. 

There  scabious  blue,  and  purple  knapweed  rise. 
And  weld  and  yarrow  show  their  various  dyes. 

In  shady  lanes  red  foxglove  bells  appear 
And  golden  spikes  the  downy  mullens  rear. 

The  second  of  these  "Eclogues"  has  to  do  with  the  care 
of  farms  and  is  as  minute  as  Cowper's  treatise  on  the  cucum- 
ber.    There  is  nowhere  in  these  poems  any  poetical  fusion  of 

I  At  this  line  Mr.  Hoole's  admiration  broke  down.  He  could  only 
regret  that  Mr.  Scott's  desire  for  novelty  had  led  him  to  admit  such  circum- 
stances as  no  versification  can  make  poetical. 


NEW  ATTITUDE  TOWARD  NATURE  175 

facts.  They  read  rather  like  the  notebooks  of  a  professional 
observer.  Yet  it  is  certainly  significant  to  find  at  this  date 
so  persistent  and  systematic  a  search  for  natural  facts,  and 
that  not  in  the  service  of  science  but  of  poetry.  In  "  Amwell" 
Scott  calls  on  the  Muse  of  Thomson,  Dyer,  and  Shenstone  for 
his  inspiration.  The  poem  is  a  description  of  the  prospect 
from  a  certain  "airy  height"  near  Amwell.  A  single  illus- 
tration will  show  the  minute  observation  and  catalogue  style 
in  this  commemoration  of  "lonely  sylvan  scenes." 

How  picturesque 
The  slender  group  of  airy  elm,  the  clump 
Of  pollard  oak,  or  ash,  with  ivy  brown 
Entwin'd;  the  walnut's  gloomy  breadth  of  boughs. 
The  orchard's  ancient  fence  of  rugged  pales, 
The  haystack's  dusty  cone,  the  moss-grown  shed, 
The  clay-built  bam;   the  elder-shaded  cot, 
Whose  whitewashed  gable  prominent  through  green 
Of  waving  branches  shows;   .... 

....  the  wall  with  mantling  vines 
O'erspread,  the  porch  with  cHmbing  woodbine  wreath'd. 
And  under  sheltering  eaves  the  sunny  bench 
Where  brown  hives  range,  whose  busy  tenants  fill 
With  drowsy  hum  the  little  garden  gay, 
Whence  blooming  beans,  and  spicy  herbs,  and  flowers, 
Exhale  around  a  rich  perfume !   Here  rests 
The  empty  wain;   there  idle  lies  the  plough. 

There  is  a  pleasant  homely  grace  in  these  lines  about  the  cot- 
tage, worth  more  than  all  the  historical  episodes  "  introduced 
to  secure  interest."  In  the  "Elegies"  and  "Odes"  there  is 
no  use  of  Nature  different  from  that  observed  in  the  other 
poems,  unless,  indeed,  mention  should  be  made  of  Scott's 
belief  that  Nature  gives  her  fairest  smiles  to  those  "  who  know 
a  Saviour's  love."  One  further  characteristic  is  to  be  found 
in  a  large  number  of  the  poems,  and  that  is  enjoyment  of  a 
wide  view.     He  describes  views  as  seen  from  "Musla's  com- 


176  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

clad  heights,"  from  "Grove  Hill,"  the  diff  at  Bath,  from 
"  Chadwell's  cliffs,"  from  "Widbury's  prospect-yielding  hill," 
from  "Upton's  elm-divided  plains,"  from  "Chfton's  rock," 
from  Amwell,  and  other  spots.  The  poems  read  as  if  he  had 
spent  many  days  climbing  hills  and  prospecting  for  views. 

Richard  Cumberland  wrote  in  1776  several  "Odes," 
something  in  the  style  of  Gray's  "Bard,"  in  honor  of  the 
artist  Romney.  In  the  "Dedication  to  Romney"  he  spoke 
with  enthusiasm  of  the  Lake  Region. 

In  truth  a  more  pleasing  tour  than  these  lakes  hold  out  to 
men  of  leisure  and  curiosity  cannot  be  devised.  We  penetrate  the 
Glaziers,  traverse  the  Rhone  and  the  Rhine,  whilst  our  domestic  lakes 
of  Ulls-water,  Keswick,  and  Windermere,  exhibit  scenes  in  so  sublime  a 
stile,  with  such  beautiful  colourings  of  rock,  wood,  and  water,  backed 
with  so  tremendous  a  disposition  of  mountains,  that  if  they  do  not 
fairly  take  the  lead  of  all  the  views  of  Europe,  yet  they  are  indisputably 
such  as  no  English  traveller  should  leave  behind  him. 

One  of  the  poems,  the  "Ode  to  the  Sun,"  has  Helvellyn, 
Skiddaw,  the  Derwent,  Lodore,  "Keswick's  sweet  fantastic 
vale,"  "stately  Windermere,"  "Savage  Wyburn,"  and 
"delicious  Grasmere's  calm  retreat"  as  its  important  scenic 
elements.     He  considers 

The  prim  canal,  the  level  green, 

The  close-clipt  hedge,  that  bounds  the  flourish'd  scene 

as  but  "the  spruce  impertinence  of  art."  From  them  comes 
no  rapture  such  as  that  excited  by  the  "gigantic  shapes"  of 
mountains.  The  Thames  is  but  a  tame  stream  compared 
with  "old  majestic  Derwent"  forcing  his  independent  course. 
In  contrast  to  the  grandeur  and  splendor  of  Nature  man 
seems  but  "weak,  contemptible,  and  vain,  the  tenant  of  a 
day."  Imperial  Ulls-water  is  not  only  declared  to  be 
superior  in  charm  to  Loch  Lomond  or  Killamey,  but  it  can 
maintain  its  own  even  against  "ought  that  learned  Poussin 


NEW  ATTITUDE  TOWARD  NATURE  177 

drew"  or  anything  painted  by  ''dashing  Rosa."  Eighteenth- 
century  praise  of  scenery  could  go  no  farther. 

Wilham  Blake's  "Poetical  Sketches,"  published  in  1783, 
were  written  between  1769  and  1777.'  The  "Songs  of 
Innocence"  appeared  in  1788-9;  "Book  of  Thel,"  1789; 
"The  Marriage  of  Heaven  and  Hell,"  1790;  and  "Songs  of 
Experience"  in  1794.  In  the  first  volume  Nature  was  the 
leading  subject;  in  the  next  human  interests  were  in  the 
ascendent,  and  Nature  was  used  only  in  fresh,  ballad-like 
touches.  In  the  later  work  Nature  is  slightly  used  and  for 
the  most  part  in  the  form  of  mystical  symbolism. 

It  was  Blake's  theory  that  man  is  "  imprisoned  in  his  five 
senses,"  and  he  counted  it  his  mission  to  reveal  to  closed  eyes 
the  spiritual  as  the  only  real  fact  of  existence.  In  his  early 
work  this  theory,  as  yet  unexaggerated  in  application,  led  to 
a  treatment  of  Nature,  not  untrue  to  facts,  but  characterized 
especially  by  qualities  of  simplicity  and  vision  such  as  are  not 
found  again  before  Wordsworth.  In  these  years  of  his  youth 
Blake  was  essentially  the  poet  of  childhood  and  spring  in  all 
their  sweet,  potent,  indefinable  charm. 

And  I  made  a  rural  pen, 

And  I  stained  the  water  clear 
And  I  wrote  my  happy  songs, 

Every  child  may  joy  to  hear,^ 

gives  the  keynote  to  these  songs  of  delight.  The  joy  of 
Nature  is  everywhere  insisted  on.  The  sun  makes  the  sky 
happy;  the  vales  rejoice;  spring  cannot  hide  its  joy  when 
buds  and  blossoms  come;  the  happy  blossoms  look  on  merry 
birds;  groves  are  happy  and  green  woods  rejoice;  dimpling 
streams,  the  air,  green  hills,  meadows,  and  birds  laugh  with 
delight.     Here  is  one  exquisite  example: 

1  See  "Advertisement"  to  "Poetical  Sketches." 

2  Introduction  to  "Songs  of  Innocence." 


178  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

The  moon  like  a  flower 
In  heaven's  high  bower, 
With  silent  delight, 
Sits  and  smiles  on  the  night. ^ 

He  contrasts  the  clamor  and  destruction  of  city  streets 
with  the  true  joy  in  Nature.  In  the  silent  woods,  delights 
blossom  around,  numberless  beauties  blow.  The  green 
grass  springs  in  joy,  and  the  nimble  air  kisses  the  leaves.  The 
brook  stretches  its  arms  along  the  silent  meadow,  its  silver 
inhabitants  sport  and  play.  The  youthful  sun  joys  like  a  hun- 
ter roused  to  the  chase.^  In  "Fragments"  and  "Couplets," 
excerpts  from  his  MS  book,  occurs  this  fine,  though 
casual  statement  of  the  opposition  between  town  and  country: 

Great  things  are  done  when  men  and  mountains  meet; 
These  are  not  done  by  jostling  in  the  street. 

Blake  cared  much  for  sleep  as  the  time  when  man  was 
most  free  from  the  tyranny  of  the  senses.  Many  of  his  char- 
acters are  represented  as  asleep,  and  the  conception  is  trans- 
ferred to  many  lovely  scenes  in  Nature.  He  pictures  summer 
as  sleeping  beneath  oaks;  flowers  shut  their  eyes  in  sleep; 
the  west  wind  sleeps  on  the  lake;  and  dawn  sleeps  in  heaven. 
With  this  is  associated  an  evident  pleasure  in  the  silence  of 
Nature,  apparently  the  pathetic  complement  of  its  joys. 
There  is  a  silent  sleep  over  the  deep  of  heaven;  the  evening 
star  speaks  silence  to  the  lake.  At  night  the  moon  is  silent, 
and  the  earth,  and  the  sea. 

Occasional  passages  show  the  character  of  Blake's  own 
love  of  Nature,  as, 

I  love  to  rise  on  a  summer  mom, 

1  love  the  laughing  vale, 

I  love  the  echoing  hill. 

1  "Night." 

2  "Contemplation." 


NEW  ATTITUDE  TOWARD  NATURE  179 

His  feeling  toward  flowers  was  as  intimate,  as  tenderly  pro- 
tecting, as  was  that  of  Burns  toward  small  animals.  Sun 
and  stars,  winds,  clouds,  dew,  and  angels  are  represented  as 
caring  for  the  happy  blossoms. 

All  of  Blake's  poetry  of  Nature  is  as  freshly  beautiful  as 
the  dewy  mornings,  the  spring-time  green,  the  shining  skies, 
as  clear  and  transparent  as  the  limpid,  dimpling  streams  he 
loved.  There  are  also  frequent  passages  that  besides  their 
metrical  flow  and  exquisite  charm  of  external  suggestion 
seem  to  reveal  the  essential  spirit  of  the  object  described. 
One  of  the  loveliest  examples  is  the  word  of  the  Lily  of  the 
Valley. 

I  am  a  watry  weed, 
And  I  am  very  small  and  love  to  dwell  in  lowly  vales: 
So  weak  the  gilded  butterfly  scarce  perches  on  my  head. 
Yet  I  am  visited  from  heaven;  and  He  that  smiles  on  all 
Walks  in  the  valley,  and  each  mom  over  me  spreads  his  hand. 
Saying,  Rejoice,  thou  humble  grass,  thou  new-bom  lilly  flower, 
Thou  gentle  maid  of  silent  valleys  and  of  modest  brooks; 
For  thou  shalt  be  clothed  in  light  and  fed  with  moming  manna. ^ 

For  fine  contrasts,  each  poem  perfect  of  its  kind,  see  ''The 
Lamb"  and  "The  Tiger."  The  modest  simplicity  of  the 
one  is  as  adequately  portrayed  as  the  dread  magnificence  of 
the  other.  There  is  no  description.  There  is  interpretation 
of  the  most  penetrating  sort. 

He  has  also  frequent  similes  worked  out  with  picturesque 
detail,  as  in  this  one  from  "The  Couch  of  Death": 

He  was  hke  a  cloud  tossed  by  the  winds,  till  the  sun  shines,  and  the 
drops  of  rain  glisten,  the  yellow  harvest  breathes,  and  the  thankful  eyes 
of  villagers  are  tumed  up  in  smiles;  the  traveller,  that  hath  taken  shelter 
under  an  oak,  eyes  the  distant  country  with  joy. 

One  secret  of  the  effectiveness  of  Blake's  best  work  is  his 

I  "Bookof  Thel." 


l8o  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

^    recognition  of  the  unity  of  all  existence.     The  prefatory 
stanza  to  "Auguries  of  Innocence," 

To  see  a  world  in  a  grain  of  sand, 
And  a  heaven  in  a  wild  flower; 

Hold  infinity  in  the  palm  of  your  hand. 
And  eternity  in  an  hour, 

is  a  brief  poetic  statement  of  the  creed  afterward  elaborated 
in  Wordsworth's  "Primrose  on  the  Rock"  and  Tennyson's 
v^  "Flower  in  the  Crannied  Wall."  The  thought  back  of  the 
lines  is  the  one  in  Wordsworth's  mind  when  he  looked  on 
^  "  the  meanest  flower  that  blows."  It  is  this  underlying  con- 
sciousness of  essential  spiritual  unity  in  all  existence  that 
gives  to  the  work  of  both  Blake  and  Wordsworth  its  subtle 
power. 

There  could  hardly  be  two  more  dissimilar  ways  of  ap- 
proaching Nature  than  those  of  John  Scott  and  William 
Blake.  They  stand  at  opposite  poles,  the  one  with  no  sense 
of  unity,  no  power  of  poetic  fusion  or  interpretation,  but  with 
a  wide,  accurate,  and  often  picturesque  assemblage  of 
natural  facts;  the  other  with  a  prevailing  tone  of  unreality 
and  mysticism,  a  fine  scorn  of  the  actual,  but  with  a  swift 
recognition  of  the  spirit  of  Nature,  and  an  abiding  sense  of  cos- 
mic unity.  Yet  each  represents  a  characteristic  phase  of  the 
new  feeling  for  Nature  as  seen  in  Wordsworth.  On  the  one 
hand,  the  practiced  eye  and  the  inevitable  ear;  on  the  other, 
the  vision  and  the  faculty  divine. 

In  its  significance  as  a  prophecy  of  Wordsworth  and 
Shelley,  the  early  poetry  of  William  Blake  is  of  especial 
importance. 

Crabbe's  poetry  falls  into  two  periods,  the  first  one  closing 
with  "The  Newspaper"  in  1785,  and  the  second  beginning 
with  "The  Parish  Register"  after  an  interval  of  twenty-two 
years.     In  the  first  of  these  periods  we  find  but  slight  use 


NEW  ATTITUDE  TOWARD  NATURE  i8i 

of  external  Nature.  The  occasional  similitudes  are  of  a 
formal  conventional  type.  The  two  longest  descriptive 
passages  are  of  a  dismal  winter  scene,  ^  and  of  some  sterile 
summer  lields  that  mock  man's  need  with  profitless  blooms.^ 
There  is  no  expression  of  pleasure  in  Nature.  It  is  her 
pitiless,  anti-human  aspects  that  Crabbe  sees.  The  charm 
of  Nature  independent  of  utility  seems  to  have  no  meaning 
for  him.     He  consciously  repudiates 

Clear  skies,  clear  streams,  soft  banks,  and  sober  bowers, 
Deer,  whimpering  brooks,  and  wind-perfuming  flowers, 

as  unworthy  poetic  material.^  Rough  or  barren  Nature  as 
the  background  or  occasion  of  man's  misery  is  the  thought 
of  these  early  poems. 

Crabbe's  second  period  does  not  properly  belong  in  a 
study  of  development  which  has  "The  Lyrical  Ballads"  as 
its  terminus  ad  quern,  but  it  may  be  briefly  spoken  of  here 
because  of  the  interesting  contrast  it  offers  to  the  first  period. 
A  suggestive  study  might  be  made  of  the  descriptive  element 
in  "The  Village"  (1783)  as  compared  with  that  of  "The 
Borough"  (1810).  The  scene  of  each  is  a  seaside  village  on 
the  Suffolk  coast,  but  we  note  many  changes  in  the  presenta- 
tion. In  the  first  place,  in  "The  Borough"  Nature  plays 
a  much  more  important  part  than  in  "The  Village."  There 
is  a  leisurely  elaborateness  of  description  as  if  the  poet  enjoyed 
the  work  for  its  own  sake.  There  is,  to  be  sure,  insistence 
on  the  ugly  realistic  details  of  the  scenes  about  a  country  town, 
but  there  is  in  addition  a  recognition  that  even  along  this 
rocky  coast  and  in  these  barren  fields  where  Nature  defies 
man's  industry  there  may  be  found  her  gift  of  beauty.  The 
"greedy  ocean"  of  "The  Village"  is  now  "a  glorious  page 

1  "Inebriety." 

2  "The  Village."  3  "The  Choice." 


1 82  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

of  nature's  book"  on  which  the  poorest  may  gaze  with  dehght. 
The  firm,  fair  sands  on  quiet  summer  evenings,  the  lovely 
"limpid  blue  and  evanescent  green"  as  shadows  run  over  the 
waves  on  a  fresh  day,  serene  winter-views  where  strange 
effects  of  fog  add  mystery  to  the  scene,  the  majesty  of  a 
storm  at  sea — all  these  are  now  reckoned  a  part  of  the 
pleasures  of  the  poor  in  a  seaside  village.  The  sterile  fields, 
too,  have  rare  blossoms  and  curious  grasses.  There  are 
pleasant  walks  with  every  scene  rich  in  beauty.  The  evening 
twilight  is  sweet  with  jasmine  odors.'  "The  Borough"  is  as 
realistic  as  "The  Village,"  but  it  has  a  broader  outlook  and 
depicts  the  attractive  as  well  as  the  forbidding  aspects  of  the 
Suffolk  coast  near  Aldborough.  In  later  poems  the  scope 
becomes  still  wider.  Besides  the  frequent  strong  and  truth- 
ful ocean  pictures  there  are  some  beautiful  descriptions  of 
autumn  days,  moonlight  nights,  and  soft,  rich  inland  scenes. 
It  is  especially  noteworthy  that  though  there  are  seldom  any 
gay  or  bright  aspects  of  Nature  presented,  yet  Nature  is  no 
longer  represented  as  a  force  inimical  to  man.  On  the  con- 
trary, there  is  something  in  even  her  most  useless  forms  that 
gives  to  man  a  strangely  profound  pleasure.  The  simple 
music  of  a  cascade  has  in  it  a  soothing  power  that  words  will 
not  express.  In  the  clear,  silent  night  there  is  a  quiet  joy 
that  lessens  the  sting  of  mortal  pain.  These  positive  expres- 
sions of  pleasure  in  Nature  are  not  numerous,  but  they  are 
important  as  marking  a  distinct  change  of  tone.  They  are 
the  more  significant  because  they  occur  chiefly  in  the  poems 
after  1819. 

Yet  it  must  not  pass  unnoticed  that  what  Crabbe  wrote 
in  these  late  poems,  he  had  perceived  and  felt  in  his  youth. 
In  his  description  of  Richard  he  gives  an  account  of  his  own 
boyhood.     Of  the  ocean  he  says, 

I  "The  Borough"  especially  Letters  I  and  IX. 


NEW  ATTITUDE  TOWARD  NATURE  183 

I  loved  to  walk  where  none  had  walked  before 
About  the  rock  that  ran  along  the  shore. 

Here  had  I  favorite  stations,  where  I  stood 
And  heard  the  murmurs  of  the  ocean  flood, 
With  not  a  sound  beside,  except  when  flew 
Aloft  the  lapwing,  or  the  gray  curlew. 

Pleasant  it  was  to  view  the  sea-gulls  strive 
Against  the  storm,  or  in  the  ocean  dive 
With  eager  scream,  or  when  they  dropping  gave 
Their  closing  wings  to  sail  upon  the  wave. 

Nor  pleased  it  less  around  me  to  behold 
Far  up  the  beach  the  yesty  sea-foam  rolled; 
Or  from  the  shore  upborne,  to  see  on  high 
Its  frothy  flakes  in  wild  confusion  fly: 
While  the  salt  spray  that  clashing  billows  form 
Gave  to  the  taste  a  feeling  of  the  storm. ^ 

He  recalls  how  he  explored  every  creek  and  bay,  how  he  took 
long  walks  over  the  hilly  heath  and  mossy  moors.  Most  of 
the  scenery  in  "The  Borough"  as  well  as  that  in  "The  Vil- 
lage" is  a  memory  picture  of  the  country  he  knew  so  well  in 
boyhood.  It  seems  strange  that  this  genuine  love  and  ac- 
curate knowledge  of  Nature  should  not  have  found  fuller 
expression  in  his  early  poetry.  The  explanation  is  perhaps 
tw^ofold.  His  interest  w^as  primarily  in  man.  He  said  that  the 
finest  scenes  in  Nature  were  less  attractive  to  him  than  faces 
on  a  crow^ded  street.  He  meant  to  be  the  portrait  painter 
of  poor  people  as  he  had  seen  them  in  a  seaside  village. 
His  bitter  pictures  of  country  vice  and  ignorance  and  folly  had 
in  them  no  touch  of  patronage  or  contempt.  He  simply  gave 
a  hard,  truthful  representation  of  sordid  life,  and  Nature  had 
no  meaning  for  him  except  as  it  was  brought  into  connection 
with  that  life.    When  in  after  years  his  own  lot  was  a  happier 

I  "Tales  of  the  Hall,"  Book  IV. 


1 84  NATURE  IX  ENGLISH  POETRY 

one,  and  when  a  wider  experience  had  brought  him  into  con- 
tact with  thrify  country  folk,  the  bitterness  of  his  early  thought 
of  man  was  greatly  modified.  With  new  views  of  man  came 
an  openness  of  mind  to  the  gentler  aspects  of  Nature.  The 
real  love  of  his  boyhood,  no  longer  crushed  down  by  an  over- 
mastering sense  of  human  misery,  was  allowed  free  play. 
Furthermore,  his  later  work  was  doubtless  influenced  by  the 
new  spirit  of  poetry  about  him.  His  son  says  that  while  at 
first  but  a  cool  admirer  of  the  Lake  poets,  he  came  soon  to 
love  them  and  took  no  books  oftener  in  his  hands.  All  of 
Crabbe's  work  in  which  there  is  much  use  of  Nature  comes 
more  than  ten  years  after  the  ''Lyrical  Ballads,"  hence  his 
growingly  full  use  of  Nature  might  easily  be  due  in  part  to  the 
influence  of  the  new^  school  of  poetry.  His  free  life,  the 
different  class  of  peasants  he  saw,  the  new  poetry  he  was 
reading,  would  all  have  their  effect  in  turning  his  attention  to 
Nature.  But  the  Nature  he  chose  to  write  about  was  that 
w^hich  he  had  known  and  loved  as  a  boy. 

William  Cowper  as  a  poet  of  Nature,  is  marked  first  by  the 
narrowness  of  the  limits  within  which  he  writes.  Moun- 
tains' are  merely  mentioned.  Night  is  nowhere  described. 
Moonlight  plays  no  part  in  his  poetry.^  The  stars  are  occa- 
sionally spoken  of,  but  only  in  a  conventional  manner  as 
"shining  hosts,"  "fair  ministers  of  fight,"  or  "beamy  fires." 
Of  wild  scenery  there  is  none.     The  nearest  approach  to  it  is 

1  In  a  letter  to  Newton,  November  i6,  1791,  he  wrote:  "I  would  that 
I  could  see  some  of  the  mountains  which  you  have  seen;  especially  because 
Dr.  Johnson  has  pronounced  that  no  man  is  qualified  to  be  a  poet  who  has 
never  seen  a  mountain.  But  mountains  I  shall  never  see,  unless,  perhaps, 
in  a  dream,  or  unless  there  are  such  in  heaven." 

2  See  "Task,"  i,  764;  iv,  254-58.  The  best  lines  on  the  moon  are  in 
"Task,"  iv,  3, 

the  wintry  flood,  in  which  the  moon 
Sees  her  unwrinkled  face  reflected  bright. 


NEW  ATTITUDE  TOWARD  NATURE  185 

in  two  brief  descriptions  of  rocky  bluffs  on  the  seashore.^ 
His  references  to  the  ocean  are  brief  and  not  of  much  impor- 
tance; nor  are  there  any  storms  except  in  a  few  hnes  about  "a 
driving,  dashing  rain"  with  thunder  and  hghtning  used  as  an 
"apt  simihtude."^  The  one  winter  storm  is  merely  a  gentle 
fall  of  snow  that  comes  after  the  evening  curtains  are  tight 
drawn.3  The  similitudes,  though  often  carefully  elaborated, 
show  little  if  any  new  use  of  Nature,  and  they  are  drawn  from 
a  small  number  of  natural  facts.^ 

The  explanation  of  this  narrowness  of  limit  is  twofold. 
Cowper  described  only  what  he  had  seen,^  and  he  had  seen 
no  country  but  his  own,  and  only  a  very  small  and  compara- 
tively uninteresting  portion  of  that.  The  Downs  about  Bath, 
where  he  seems  to  have  been  for  a  short  time  when  he  was 
about  eighteen,  was  the  nearest  approach  to  wild  scenery  that 
he  had  ever  known.  During  the  seventeen  years  before  the 
writing  of  "The  Task"  (1785)  he  had  seldom  left  Olney,  and 
never  for  a  fortnight  together.^  His  knowledge  was  further 
limited  by  his  continued  ill-health.  He  was  ignorant  of  cer- 
tain phases  of  the  out-door  world  simply  because  his  physical 
infirmities  kept  him  in  the  house. 

This  explanation  of  the  narrow  range  of  the  Nature  in  Cow- 
per's  poetry  is  not  entirely  satisfactory,  for  when  we  come  to 
his  letters  we  find  suggestions  of  a  wider  experience  and  sym- 
pathy than  the  poems  would  indicate.  In  a  letter  to  Joseph 
Hill  he  wrote: 

1  "Task,"  i,  520;  vi,  495. 

2  "Truth,"  1.  238.  3  "Task,"  iv,  322. 

4  Illustrative  similitudes  are  those  drawn  from  the  thunderstorm 
("Truth,"  1.  238),  deer  ("Task,"  iii,  108),  peacocks  and  pheasants  ("Truth," 
1.  58),  elm  and  vine  ("Retirement,"  1.  129),  moles  ("Task,"  i,  276),  etc. 

5  In  a  letter  to  Rev.  William  Unwin,  October,  1784,  Cowper  wrote, 
"My  descriptions  are  all  from  nature;  not  one  of  them  second-handed." 

6  Letter  to  Lady  Herbert,  October  12,  1785. 


1 86        NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

I  was  always  an  admirer  of  thunderstorms,  even  before  I  knew 
whose  voice  I  heard  in  them;  but  esjDecially  an  admirer  of  thunder 
rolling  over  the  great  waters.  There  is  something  singularly  majestic 
in  the  sound  of  it  at  sea,  where  the  eye  and  the  ear  have  uninterrupted 
opportunity  of  observation,  and  the  concavity  above,  being  made  spa- 
cious, reflects  it  with  more  advantage We  have  indeed  been 

regaled  with  some  of  those  bursts  of  etherial  music But  when 

the  thunder  preaches,  an  horizon  bounded  by  the  ocean  is  the  only 
sounding  board. 

To  the  Rev.  William  Unwin,  September  26, 1781,  he  wrote: 

I  think,  with  you,  that  the  most  magnificent  object  under  heaven  is 
the  great  deep;  and  can  not  but  feel  an  unpolite  species  of  astonishment 
when  I  consider  the  multitudes  that  view  it  without  emotion,  and  even 
without  reflection.  In  all  its  various  forms  it  is  an  object  of  all  others 
the  most  suited  to  affect  us  with  lasting  impressions  of  the  awful  power 
that  created  and  controls  it.  I  am  the  less  inclined  to  think  this  negh- 
gence  excusable,  because,  at  a  time  of  life  when  I  gave  as  little  attention 
to  religious  subjects  as  any  man,  I  yet  remember  that  the  waves  would 
preach  to  me,  and  that  in  the  midst  of  dissipation  I  had  an  ear  to  hear 
them.  One  of  Shakespeare's  characters  says,  "I  am  never  merry  when 
I  hear  sweet  music."  The  same  effect  that  harmony  seems  to  have  had 
upon  him  I  have  experienced  from  the  sight  and  sound  of  the  ocean, 
which  have  often  composed  my  thoughts  into  a  melancholy  not  unpleas- 
ing  nor  without  its  use. 

He  had  also,  during  these  years  at  Olney,  made  many 
an  imaginary  evening  journey  to  remote  lands  by  means  of 
books  of  travel,  of  which  he  was  especially  fond.  But  when 
he  came  to  write  poems,  only  what  he  had  known  at  first 
hand  and  with  long  familiarity  occurred  to  him.  Experi- 
ences merely  casual,  or  remote  in  time,  and  facts  gained  from 
books  slipped  away.  He  remembered  only  what  he  habitu- 
ally saw.  The  scenes  about  Olney  he  knew,  literally,  by 
heart,  and  of  these  he  wrote. 

A  characteristic  excellence  of  Cowper's  treatment  of 
Nature  is  that,  within  his  narrow  circuit,  his  knowledge  is  of 


NEW  ATTITUDE  TOWARD  NATURE  187 

unusual  fulness  and  accuracy.  The  charm  of  truthful 
description  is  everywhere  apparent.  In  pictures  of  homely 
country  occupations,  such  as  feeding  the  hens,'  foddering  the 
cattle,^  cutting  wood,^  plowing,^  threshing, ^  there  are  no 
false  touches,  no  hasty  work.  All  is  the  result  of  first-hand, 
leisurely,  sympathetic  observation.  His  description  of  the 
garden  is  from  memory,  but  it  almost  seems  as  if  he  were 
walking  from  flower  to  flower  and  taking  notes,  so  minute  is 
the  characterization,  so  exact  each  epithet  in  the  representa- 
tion of  the  various  colors,  forms,  odors,  and  ways  of  growth 
of  the  flowers  in  this  garden  that  the  poet  sees  under  the  snows 
of  winter.^ 

The  same  love  of  precise  detail  is  illustrated  in  his  descrip- 
tions of  trees.  In  noting  their  color  he  does  not,  like  Thom- 
son, enjoy  general,  broadly  inclusive  words,  but  he  gives  the 
exact  shade  and  tells  to  what  tree  it  belongs.  When  he  takes 
a  walk  he  sees  that  the  trunks  of  the  ash,  the  lime,  and  the 
beech  shine  distinctly  under  their  shadowy  foliage.  The 
willow  is  a  "  wannish  gray."  The  poplar  is  likewise  gray,  but 
there  is  a  touch  of  silver  in  the  lining  of  the  leaves.  The  elm 
is  deeper  green  than  the  ash,  and  the  oak  of  a  deeper  green  still. 
The  maple,  the  beech,  and  the  lime  have  glossy  leaves  that 
shine  in  the  sun.  The  sycamore  changes  from  green  to 
tawny,  and  then  to  scarlet,  according  to  the  season. ^ 

This  highly  differentiated  knowledge  is  evident  also  in 
various  passages  on  the  sounds  of  Nature.  In  a  letter  to 
Newton  he  wrote:  "The  notes  of  all  our  birds  and  fowls 
please  me,  without  one  exception;  ....  and  as  to  insects 
....  in  whatever  key  they  sing,  from  the  gnat's  fine  treble 
to  the  bass  of  the  humble  bee,  I  admire  them  all." 

I  "Task,"  V,  58. 

»  Ihid.,  27.  4  Ibid.,  i,  161.  6  Ibid.,  vi,  147. 

3  Ibid.,  41.  5  Ibid.,  358.  7  Ibid.,  i,  304. 


1 88  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

Equally  specific  is  his  record  of  the  sounds  from  winds 
and  waters,  as  in  these  lines: 

Rills  that  slip 
Through  the  cleft  rock,  and  chiming  as  they  fall 
Upon  loose  pebbles,  lose  themselves  at  length 
In  matted  grass  that  with  a  livelier  green 
Betrays  the  secret  of  their  silent  course.' 

Or  these  about  forest  sounds: 

Mighty  winds 
That  sweep  the  skirt  of  some  far-spreading  wood 
Of  ancient  growth,  make  music  not  unHke 
The  dash  of  ocean  on  his  winding  shore.  ^ 

In  wider  descriptions,  as  of  extended  views,  there  is  abso- 
lutely no  blurring  of  edges.  The  picture  is  as  clear,  distinct, 
and  exact  as  a  photograph.  There  is  no  inartistic  mixing  of 
foreground  and  background.  A  good  example  is  the  view 
described  in  the  first  book  of  "  The  Task."^  The  eye  travels 
over  the  landscape  with  its  river  shining  like  molten  glass;  on 
its  banks  droop  the  elms,  on  either  side  are  level  plains 
sprinkled  with  catde,  beyond  is  the  sloping  land  covered  with 
hedgerows,  groves,  heaths,  with  here  and  there  a  square 
tower  or  tall  spire,  and  in  the  distance  smoking  towns;  and 
at  last  the  scene  is  lost  in  the  clouds  on  the  horizon. 

Many  litde  pictures,  complete  in  a  few  lines,  serve  even 

better  to  illustrate  the  exquisite  truth  of  Cowper's  work. 

Note  this  description  of  the  shifting  lights  in  a  forest  pathway: 

While  beneath 
The  chequered  earth  seems  restless  as  a  flood 
Brushed  by  the  wind.     So  sportive  is  the  light 
Shot  through  the  boughs,  it  dances  as  they  dance, 
Shadow  and  sunshine  intermingling  quick. 
And  darkening  and  enlightening,  as  the  leaves 
Play  wanton,  every  moment,  every  spot.* 

1  "Task,"  i,  195.  3  Ibid.,  159. 

2  Ibid.,  185.  "^  Ibid.,  346. 


NEW  ATTITUDE  TOWARD  NATURE  189 

Or  this  of  the  squirrel  just  come  from  winter  quarters  in 
some  lonely  elm : 

Flippant,  pert,  and  full  of  play: 
He  sees  me,  and  at  once,  swift  as  a  bird. 
Ascends  the  neighboring  beech;   there  whisks  his  brush, 
And  perks  his  ears,  and  stamps,  and  cries  aloud. 
With  all  the  prettiness  of  feign'd  alarm 
And  anger  insignificantly  fierce.^ 

Equally  felicitous  are  the  descriptions  of  tall  grass  fledged 
with  icy  feathers  on  a  frosty  morning,^  or  of  the  redbreast 
in  a  sheltered  woodland  path  in  w^inter.^  These  pictures 
and  other  similar  ones  immediately  take  a  permanent  place 
in  one's  mental  picture  gallery.  It  would  be  difficult  indeed 
for  a  painting  to  make  the  light  dance  as  it  does  in  that  forest 
path.  The  squirrel  absolutely  tingles  with  life.  The  right 
word  comes  easily  and  the  lines  show  exquisite  deftness  of 
literary  touch.  It  is  rare  in  any  poetry  to  find  more  excellent 
examples  of  pure  description  than  these  and  other  passages 
in  "The  Task."  Cow^per  had  the  mind  that  watches  and 
receives.  He  looked  about  him  and  wrote  down  in  simple, 
sincere  w^ords  the  loveliness  he  found.  He  took  notes,  but 
they  were  of  the  right  sort,  mental  and  unconscious,  the 
inevitable  imprint  on  a  sensitive  mind  of  scenes  that  had 
ministered  to  his  deepest  need. 

The  ministry  of  Nature  to  human  needs  is  a  cardinal  prin- 
ciple in  Cowper's  poetry.  Nor  was  this  conception  merely 
theoretic.  It  was  rather  a  transcript  from  his  own  experience. 
From  childhood  he  had  loved  Nature, ^  and  poems  about 
Nature,^  and  he  had  always  planned  to  live  in  the  country.^ 
After  years  of  disappointment  and  terrifying  fears,  compara- 

I  "Task,"  vi,  310.  4  Ihid.,  i,  109,  142. 

3  Ihid.,  V,  22.  5  Ibid.,  iv,  700. 

3  Ibid.,  vi,  77.  6  Ibid.,  695. 


190  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

tive  peace  came'^to  him  amid  quiet  country  scenes.  The 
instincts  of  his  early  days  revived.  Nature  offered  him  a 
paradise  of  rich  dehghts.  She  enchanted  him.  She  gave 
him  heart-consohng  joys.  She  sweetened  his  bitter  Hfe, 
alluring  him  with  smiles  from  gloom  to  happiness.  The 
glory  of  each  new  morning  was  a  lesson  in  hope.  He  found 
in  Nature  the  nurse  of  wisdom,  a  power  that  could  compose 
his  passions  and  exalt  his  mind.  He  felt  that  in  the  country 
God  spoke  directly  to  his  heart.  ^ 

The  obverse  of  this  genuine  love  of  the  country  is  an 
equally  genuine  detestation  of  the  to^^Ti  and  town  standards. 
The  crowds  that  swarm  to  city  streets  are  the  subjects  of 
repeated  invectives,  and  there  is  even  more  emphatic  scorn  of 
sham  lovers  of  Nature,  as  cockneys  in  suburban  villas;  girls 
who  but  for  the  show  and  dress-parade  of  the  country  would 
hurry  back  to  the  city;  men  who  love  hunting  and  fishing,  and 
call  it  a  love  of  Nature;  sentimentalists,  who  exclaim  over 
Thomson's  poetry,  but  prefer  to  read  it  in  the  city.'  His 
own  relationship  with  Nature  was  too  intimate  and  too 
sacred  to  admit  of  indifference  or  profanation  on  the  part  of 
others. 

Cowper's  literary  use  of  Nature  was  largely  determined 
by  his  purpose  in  writing.  His  poetical  thesis  received  its 
dogmatic  summing-up  in  the  famous  dictum, 

God  made  the  country  and  man  made  the  towTi,3 

I  See  "Hope,"  11.  39-60;  "Task,"  iii,  721;    iv,  780;    iii,  301;    and  other 
passages.     In  the  passage  from  "Hope"  compare  the  line: 

She  spreads  the  morning  over  Eastern  hills, 

and  Wordsworth's 

A  boy  I  loved  the  sun 
....  for  this  cause  that  I  had  seen  him  lay 
His  beauty  on  the  morning  hills. — "Prelude,"  ii,  183. 

>  See  "Retirement,"  11.  481,  563;   "Task,"  iii,  314,  306. 

3  "Task,"  i,  749. 


NEW  ATTITUDE  TOWARD  NATURE  191 

and  to  the  establishment  of  this  thesis  nearly  all  his  use  of 
Nature  is  made  more  or  less  directly  subservient. 

This  is  clearly  seen  in  his  use  of  summaries.  He  has  a 
habit  of  analyzing  Nature  into  separate  facts  and  then  classi- 
fying these  facts  under  topics.  For  instance,  to  make  a  list 
of  his  sounds  one  hardly  needs  to  search  through  the  poems. 
They  will  be  found  already  grouped  together.  So,  too,  the 
garden  flowers,  the  greenhouse  flowers,  the  colors  of  trees, 
country  occupations,  and  country  pleasures,  are  arranged 
under  heads  instead  of  being  scattered  through  various 
descriptions.  Then  there  are  many  summaries  of  miscel- 
laneous facts.  Now  the  literary  purpose  of  nearly  every 
assemblage  of  details  is  the  establishment  or  illustration  of 
some  point  connected  with  the  general  conception  of  the 
superior  attractions  of  the  country.  The  catalogues  of  facts 
have  a  definite  argumentative  value,  and  the  artistic  selec- 
tion of  these  facts  out  of  the  mass  known  is  determined  by  the 
especial  point  under  consideration.  In  '' Retirement"  there  is 
a  rapid  enumeration  of  many  phases  of  Nature  in  various  sea- 
sons, the  purpose  being  to  show  that  all  forms  of  Nature  are 
pleasing  to  a  poet's  mind.  The  following  passage  is  a  good 
example  of  a  summary  the  purpose  of  which  is  to  present  a 
concrete,  picturesque,  amplified  statement  of  the  creed  that 
Nature  gives  a  wisdom  higher  than  can  come  from  books: 

But  trees,  and  ^i^allets,  whose  rapid  course 

Defies  the  check  of  winter,  haunts  of  deer. 

And  sheep-walks  populous  with  bleating  lambs, 

And  lanes,  in  which  the  primrose  ere  her  time 

Peeps  through  the  moss  that  clothes  the  hawthorn  root, 

Deceive  no  student.     Wisdom  there,  and  truth, 

Not  shy,  as  in  the  world,  and  to  be  won 

By  slow  solicitation,  seize  at  once 

The  roving  thought,  and  fix  it  on  themselves.^ 

I  "Task,"  vi,  .109;     of.  11.    84-117    of   Wordsworth's  "The    Tables 
Turned": 


192  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

Frequent  summaries  are  used  to  show  that  in  the  country 
God  gives  especial  revelations  of  his  power.  The  long 
flower  catalogue  is  to  show  that  the  beauty  of  the  flushing 
spring  but  speaks  to  man  of  the  indwelling  of  God.^  The 
ceaseless  activity  of  Nature  is  attested  by  another  summary.^ 
Still  further  summaries  illustrate  the  power  of  Nature  over 
the  man  wearied  with  cares  of  state. ^  The  beautiful  sum- 
mary of  rural  sounds  is  to  show  the  exhilarating  effect  of 
Nature  on  the  languid  mind  and  heart.  ^  It  is  this  underlying 
purpose  that  gives  unity  to  passages  which  would  otherwise 
be  hardly  more  than  catalogues. 

Another  characteristic  way  in  which  Cowper  presents 
Nature  is  in  descriptive  passages  used  as  a  background  for  his 
own  meditative  figure.  The  beautiful  description  of  the 
sheltered  path  where  he  walked  in  winter^  would  lose  much 
of  its  meaning  if  we  were  not  throughout  conscious  of  the 
poet's  presence  and  his  delighted  response  to  all  the  influences 
about  him.  Nearly  all  the  passages  that  might  otherwise  be 
called  pure  description  are  given  warmth  and  tone  by  the 
fact  that  we  go  with  the  poet,  and,  as  it  were,  hear  him  talk 
about  the  scene  as  one  he  has  long  known  and  loved,  until 

Books !  'tis  a  dull  and  endless  strife, 


Come  forth  into  the  light  of  things, 
Let  Nature  be  your  teacher. 
She  has  a  world  of  ready  wealth 
Our  minds  and  hearts  to  bless. 


Sweet  is  the  lore  which  Nature  brings; 

Our  meddling  intellect 

Mis-shapes  the  beauteous  forms  of  things. 

See  also,  "To  My  Sister": 

One  moment  now  may  give  us  more 
Than  years  of  toiling  reason. 

I  "Task,"  vi,  121-97. 

'  Ibid.,  i,  369.  4  "Task,"  vi,  181. 

3  "Retirement,"  1.  419.  s  Ibid.,  59. 


NEW  ATTITUDE  TOWARD  NATURE  193 

it  takes  an  added  interest  from  his  personality,  or  we  seem  to 
see  him  in  semi-identification  with  the  scenes.  It  is  the 
apparent  equality,  the  comradeship,  between  the  hare,  the 
squirrel,  and  the  poet  in  the  solitary  winter  retreat  that  adds 
to  the  beauty  of  the  spot  the  needed  human  touch.  Nature 
is  thus  suffused  with  human  experience  and  takes  on  a  new 
interest.  But  it  usually  happens  that  these  descriptions 
become,  further,  either  the  appropriate  setting  for  a  certain 
train  of  reflections  on  the  part  of  the  poet,  or  they  directly 
suggest  these  suggestions.  In  the  winter  retreat  just  spoken 
of  the  fearless,  innocent  animal  life  becomes  the  occasion  of 
a  long  disquisition  on  the  lesson  of  benevolence  taught  by 
Nature  to  man.  In  the  sheltered  walk  the  poet  finds  his 
mind  soothed  and  prepared  for  a  Wordsworthian  contempla- 
tion on  Nature  as  the  teacher  of  the  wise,  so  that  ultimately 
many  of  Cowper's  descriptions,  as  well  as  his  summaries, 
become  contributory  to  his  main  purpose. 

Cowper's  knowledge  of  natural  facts  was  not  more  remark- 
able than  John  Scott's.  His  range  was  much  narrower  than 
Thomson's.  Other  men  had  loved  Nature  with  passionate 
intensity.  To  other  minds  Nature  had  suggested  deep 
thoughts  of  God  and  man.  Cowper  came  when  many  ele- 
ments of  the  new  attitude  toward  Nature  had  been  clearly 
voiced.  What  marks  him  out  as  holding  a  unique  position 
is  not  only  that  he  gave  body  and  emphasis  to  the  new  thought, 
but  especially  that  he  became  its  propagandist.  He  ana- 
lyzed the  effect  of  Nature  on  man,  he  translated  his  personal 
experiences  into  a  theory  which  he  set  himself  to  interpret 
and  promulgate.  He  wrote  with  the  zeal  of  a  convert.  Joy 
such  as  had  come  to  him  late  in  life  was  man's  natural  heri- 
tage. Men  must  be  called  back  from  the  perverted  and 
ruinous  life  of  towns  to  the  simplicity  of  Nature.  His  theme 
is  stated  abstractly,  repeated  in  concrete  form,  illustrated 


194  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

and  amplified  with  the  patience  and  ardor  of  absolute  con- 
viction.    He  was  the  preacher  of  the  new  religion  of  Nature. 
Robert  Burns  was  deeply  sensitive  to  the  charms  of  Nature. 
In  a  letter  to  Mrs.  Dunlop  he  said : 

I  have  some  favorite  flowers  in  Spring,  among  which  are  the  moun- 
tain-daisy, the  hare-bell,  the  foxglove,  the  wild  brier-rose,  the  budding 
birk  and  the  hoary  hawthorn,  that  I  view  and  hang  over,  with  particular 
delight.  I  never  hear  the  loud,  solitary  whistle  of  the  curlew  in  a  Sum- 
mer noon,  or  the  wild  mixing  cadence  of  a  troop  of  grey-plover  in  an 
Autumnal  morning,  without  feehng  an  elevation  of  soul  like  the  Enthu- 
siasm of  Devotion  or  Poetry.^ 

Again  he  says: 

I  have  various  sources  of  pleasure  which  are  in  a  manner  peculiar 

to  myself Such  is  the  pecuHar  pleasure  I  take  in  the  season  of 

Winter  more  than  in  the  rest  of  the  year There  is  scarcely  any 

earthly  object  gives  me  more — I  don't  know  if  I  should  call  it  pleasure, 
but  something  which  exalts  me,  something  which  enraptures  me — than 
to  walk  in  the  sheltered  side  of  a  wood  or  high  plantation  in  a  cloudy 
winter  day,  and  hear  a  stormy  wind  howhng  among  the  trees  and  raving 
o'er  the  plain.  It  is  my  best  season  for  devotion;  my  mind  is  rapt  up 
in  a  kind  of  enthusiasm  to  Him  who  ....  walks  on  the  wings  of  the 
wind.* 

Note  also  what  Mr.  Walker,  his  companion  on  the  border 
tour,  says  of  him: 

1  Burns,  ''Works,"  V,  185. 

2  Ibid.,  I,  28.     Cf.  lines  in  the  "Epistle  to  William  Simson": 

Ev'n  winter  bleak  has  charms  to  me 
When  winds  rave  thro'  the  naked  tree; 
Or  frosts  on  hills  of  Ochiltree 

Are  hoary  gray; 
Or  blinding  drifts  wild-furious  flee 

Dark'ning  the  day! 
O  Nature!  a'  thy  shews  and  forms 
To  feeling,  pensive  hearts  hae  charms, 
Whether  the  summer  kindly  warms 

Wi'  life  an'  light; 
Or  winter  howls,  in  gusty  storms, 

The  lang,  dark  night. 


NEW  ATTITUDE  TOWARD  NATURE  195 

I  had  often,  like  others,  experienced  the  pleasures  which  arise  from 
the  sublime  or  elegant  landscape,  but  I  never  saw  those  feelings  so  intense 
as  in  Bums.  When  we  reached  a  rustic  hut  on  the  river  Tilt,  where  it 
is  overhung  by  a  woody  precipice,  from  which  there  is  a  noble  waterfall, 
he  threw  himself  on  the  heathy  seat,  and  gave  himself  up  to  a  tender, 

abstracted,  and  voluptuous  enthusiasm  of  imagination It  was 

with  much  difficulty  that  I  prevailed  upon  him  to  leave  the  spot.^ 

This  susceptibility  to  Nature  was  one  of  the  signs  by 
which  ''Coila"  knew  that  Bums  would  be  the  poet  of  Scot- 
land.    He  represents  her  as  saying  to  him: 

I  saw  thee  seek  the  sounding  shore, 
DeHghted  with  the  dashing  roar; 
Or  when  the  North  his  fleecy  store 

Drove  thro'  the  sky 
I  saw  grim  Nature's  visage  hoar 

Struck  thy  young  eye. 

Or  when  the  deep  green-mantl'd  earth 
Warm  cherish'd  ev'ry  flow'ret's  birth 
And  joy  and  music  pouring  forth 

In  ev'ry  grove, 
I  saw  thee  eye  the  gen'ral  mirth 

With  boundless  love.^ 

In  his  "Commonplace  Book,"  Bums  records  his  eager 
desire  to  write  verse  that  shall  make  "the  fertile  banks  of 
Irvine,  the  romantic  woodlands  &  sequestered  scenes  on 
Aire,  and  the  healthy,  mountainous  source,  &  winding  sweep 
of  Doon  emulate  Tay,  Forth,  Ettrick,  Tweed,  &c."  And 
his  love  of  Nature  was  limited  in  scope  to  just  these  scenes 
of  which  he  speaks.  He  had  no  interest  in  mountains  or  the 
sea.  Mr.  Douglas  calls  attention  to  the  fact  that,  "living  in 
full  face  of  the  Arran  hills  he  never  names  them."^     He  was 

I  Burns,  "Works,"  IV,  272.  »  "  The  Vision,"  sts.  36,  37. 

3  Bums,  "Works,"  I,  18.     In  one  poem  Burns  declares  that  he  prefers 
"wild  mossy  moors"  to  "Forth's  sunny  shores,"  but  a  characteristic  reason. 
For  there  by  a  lanely  sequestered  stream 
Resides  a  sweet  lassie,  my  thought  and  my  dream, 

forbids  the  use  of  the  passage  as  a  proof  of  real  enjoyment  of  the  wild  in 
Nature. 


196  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

as  narrow  in  his  limits  and  as  vividly  local  in  the  Nature  he 

chose  to  represent  as  was  Cowper,  but  what  he  loved  he 

loved   with   intensity.      In   the   beautiful   and    picturesque 

scenery  about  Ayr  he  found  poetic  inspiration.     To  William 

Simson  he  said, 

The  muse,  nae  poet  ever  fand  her, 
Till  by  himself  he  leam'd  to  wander, 
Adown  some  trottin  bum's  meander, 
An'  no  think  lang; 

and  in  " The  Brigs  of  Ayr"  he  says  the  simple  bard  may  learn 
his  tuneful  trade  from  every  bough. 

Burns'  knowledge  of  the  Nature  about  him  was  abundant 
and  exact,  and  he  was  keenly  critical  of  any  note  of  falsity  in 
the  poems  of  others.  He  objected  to  the  ''Banks  of  the 
Dee"  because  of  the  line, 

And  sweetly  the  nightingale  sang  from  the  tree. 

*'In  the  first  place,"  he  said,  "the  nightingale  sings  in  a  low 
bush,  but  never  from  a  tree;  and  in  the  second  place,  there 
never  was  a  nightingale  seen  or  heard  on  the  banks  of  the 
Dee,  nor  the  banks  of  any  other  river  in  Scotland.  Exotic, 
rural  imagery  is  always  comparatively  flat."^ 

Again  he  said  of  another  song,  "It  is  a  fine  song,  but  for 
consistency's  sake,  alter  the  name  'Adonis.'  Was  there  ever 
such  banns  published,  as  a  purpose  of  marriage  between 
Adonis  and  Mary?  These  Greek  and  Roman  pastoral 
appellations  have  a  flat,  insipid  effect  in  a  Scot  song."^  He 
gives  especial  praise  to  Rev.  Dr.  Cririe,  because  "  like  Thom- 
son," the  poet  had  "looked  into  Nature  for  himself,"  and  had 
nowhere  been  content  with  a  "copied  description."^ 

When  Burns  wrote  a  descriptive  poem  of  set  purpose  he 
was  comparatively  commonplace  and   uninteresting  as  in 

1  Burns,  "Works,"  VI,  242. 

2  Ibid.,  p.  241.  3  Ibid.,  V,  165. 


NEW  ATTITUDE  TOWARD  NATURE  197 

''The  Fall  of  Foyers"  or  "Admiring  Nature."  His  best 
descriptions  come  in,  by  chance  as  it  were,  in  the  midst  of 
some  vivid  human  interests.  One  of  the  most  beautiful  is  a 
stanza  in  "Halloween": 

Whyles  owre  a  linn  the  bumie  plays. 

As  thro'  the  glen  it  wimpl't; 
Whyles  round  a  rocky  scaur  it  strays, 

WTiyles  in  a  wiel  it  dimpl't; 
Whyles  glitter'd  ta  the  nightly  rays, 

Wi'  bickering,  dancing  dazzle; 
Whyles  cookit  underneath  the  braes. 

Below  the  spreading  hazel. 
Unseen  that  night. 

Work  so  perfect  as  this  is  rare  in  any  age.  The  beauty  of 
the  poem  is  simply  the  beauty  of  the  stream  itself. 

Burns'  chief  use  of  Nature,  however,  is  in  connection 
with  man.  External  Nature  is  illustration,  background, 
frame,  for  human  emotions.  "The  Lass  of  Cressnock 
Banks"  was  written  at  twenty-two  and  is  the  first  one  of  his 
poems  in  which  there  is  any  distinct  use  of  Nature.  It  is 
merely  an  assemblage  of  twelve  formally  draw^n-out  similes  to 
represent  the  beauty  of  the  lassie.  Some  of  these  similes  are 
conventional  and  unmeaning,  as  when  her  hair  is  likened  to 
curling  mist  on  a  mountain  side,^  her  forehead  to  a  rainbow, 
her  lips  to  ripe  cherries,  and  her  teeth  to  a  flock  of  sheep. 
In  later  poems  the  similitudes  are  simpler  and  sweeter,  but 
they  are  drawn  from  a  small  number  of  facts  and  those  of 
the  more  obvious  sort,  as  the  "simmer  morn,"  "the  flower  in 
May,"  "the  opening  rose."  A  much  more  effective  use  of 
Nature  is  as  dramatic  background  either  by  congruity  or 
contrast.  As  fine  examples  of  the  use  of  Nature  to  give  the 
keynote  of  the  human  emotion  it  accompanies  we  have  the 

I  Bums  warmly  admired  Ossian,  and  this  phrase  sounds  like  an  echo 
from  one  of  the  Ossian  poems. 


198  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

opening  lines  of  the  "Elegy,"  "Farewell  Song  to  the  Banks 
of  Ayr,"  "Raving  Winds  around  Her  Blowing,"  and  "Fare- 
well to  Ballochmyle."  The  more  usual  form  is  to  represent 
a  natural  picture  in  contrast  to  the  human  emotion,  as  in 
"The  Chevaher's  Lament,"  "The  Lament  of  Mary,  Queen 
of  Scots,"  or  best  of  all,  "The  Banks  of  Doon." 

Ye  banks  and  braes  o'  bonny  Doon, 
How  can  ye  bloom  sae  fresh  and  fair  ? 
How  can  ye  chant  ye  little  birds, 
And  I  sae  w^ary,  fu'  of  care ! 

It  is  characteristic  of  Burns  that  his  knowledge  was  wider 
and  his  sympathy  keener  in  the  realm  of  animate  than  of 
inanimate  Nature.  He  apparently  thought  of  animals 
almost  as  if  they  had  been  human.  The  address  to  a  mouse 
is  as  tenderly  and  genuinely  sympathetic  as  if  it  had  been  to  a 
hurt  child.  On  winter  nights  he  listens  to  the  wind  and  can- 
not sleep  for  thinking  of  the  "ourie  cattle"  and  "silly  sheep" 
and  helpless  birds  that  "cow'r"  with  "chittering  wing."^ 
He  scorned  hunting  and  said  there  was  no  warm  poetic  heart 
that  did  not  inly  bleed  at  man's  savage  cruelty.^  He  found 
it  impossible  to  reconcile  so-called  "sport"  with  his  ideas  of 
virtue.3  He  knew  animals,  especially  birds,  in  an  intimate, 
friendly  fashion.  In  the  description  of  their  manners  and 
habits  there  is  the  most  minute  realism.  The  following 
phrases  are  illustrative:  "Ye  grouse  that  crap  the  heather 
bud;"  "Ye  curlews  calhng  thro'  a  clud;"  "Ye  whirring 
paitrick  brood;"  "Ye  fisher  herons  w^atching  eels;"  "sooty 
coots;"   "speckled  teals;"  "whistling  plover;" 

Clam'ring  craiks  at  close  o'  day 
'Mang  fields  o'  flow'ring  clover  gay; 

I  Burns,  "A  Winter  Night." 
3  Ihid.,  "The  Brigs  of  Ayr." 
3  76/£/.,  "Works,"  V,  231. 


NEW  ATTITUDE  TOWARD  NATURE  IQQ 

and 

Ye  duck  and  drake,  wi'  airy  wheels 
Circling  the  lake.^ 

In  accurate  first-hand  observation,  in  abundant  knowl- 
edge, in  the  use  of  felicitous  descriptive  epithets,  in  great 
personal  joy  in  Nature,  in  delight  in  winter,  in  love  for  animals, 
and  in  a  critical  estimate  of  the  value  of  truthful  portrayal, 
Bums  represents  the  new  spirit. 

William  Lisle  Bowles  is  another  of  the  reputed  "fathers" 
of  modem  poetry.  His  slender  title  to  the  distinction  thus 
conferred  upon  him  by  Rev.  George  Gilfillan,^  rests  on  the 
admiration  of  Coleridge,^  Southey,^  and  Lovel  for  his  early 
poems. 5  From  1798  to  the  end  of  his  life  Bowles  wrote  con- 
stantly, so  the  list  of  his  works  is  a  long  one;  but  in  the  present 
study  we  are  concerned  only  with  the  poems  before  1798,  the 
ones  that  stirred  Coleridge  to  abandon  metaphysics  for 
poetry. 

From  fourteen  to  nineteen  years  of  age  Bowles  was  in 
Winchester  School  under  the  tutelage  of  Dr.  Joseph  Warton, 
who  won  the  boy's  confidence  and  inspired  him  with  his  own 
tastes.  In  the  "Monody  on  the  Death  of  Dr.  Warton," 
written  eighteen  years  after  these  school  days,  Bowles  says 
of  Warton, 

I  Burns,  "Elegy  on  Captain  Henderson." 

3  Bowles,  "Poetical  Works,"  II,  XII  (ed.  1855). 

3  See  sonnet  by  Coleridge. 

4  "After  this  third  edition  came  out,  my  friend  Mr.  Crutwell,  the  printer, 
wrote  a  letter  saying  that  two  young  gentlemen,  strangers,  one  a  particu- 
larly handsome  and  pleasing  youth,  lately  from  Westminster  School, 
[Robert  Southey]  and  both  literary  and  intelligent,  spoke  in  high  com- 
mendation of    my   volume." — Bowles,  "Poems"  (Introduction   to   ed.    of 

1837)- 

5  "Fourteen  Sonnets,"  1789.  The  same  with  additions,  1790.  The 
same  reproduced  with  illustrations,  1798. 


200  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

Thy  cheering  voice, 
O  Warton !  bade  my  silent  heart  rejoice, 
And  wake  to  love  of  nature;  every  breeze 
On  Itchen's  brink  was  melody;   the  trees 
Waved  in  fresh  beauty;  .... 

....  And  witness  thou 
Catherine,  upon  whose  foss-encircled  brow 
We  met  the  morning,  how  I  loved  to  trace 

The  prospect  spread  around 

So  passed  my  days  with  new  dehght. 

Warton  also  taught  him  to  love  literature.     He  learned  to 

read   Greek  poets  with   "young-eyed  sympathy,"   and  he 

went  with  "holier  joy"  to 

The  lonely  heights  where  Shakespeare  sat  sublime. 
Charmed,  the  lad  bent  his  soul 

Great  Milton's  solemn  harmonies  to  hear. 
"Unheeded   midnight   hours"  were   beguiled  by  the  wild 
song  of  Ossian,  and  his  fancy  found  a  "magic  spell"  in  the 
"Odes"  of  his  master,  Dr.  Warton. 

The  influences  of  these  early  school  days  had  awakened 
Bowles  to  love  of  Nature  and  of  poetry,  and  when  sorrow  came 
it  was  to  Nature  and  to  poetry  that  he  turned  for  relief.  His 
"  Sonnets"  are  the  direct  and  genuine  expression  of  a  personal 
grief.  They  were  composed,  he  says,  during  a  tour  in  which 
he  "  sought  forgetfulness  of  the  first  disappointment  in  early 
affections,"'  and  they  are  pervaded  by  a  melancholy  un- 
mistakably real.  But  along  with  this  deep  sadness  is  a  fre- 
quent recognition  of  the  power  of  Nature  to  give  at  least 
temporary  respite  from  grief.  Not  only  does  she  "steep 
each  sense  in  still  delight,""  but  she  bestows  "a  soothing 
charm."3     The  lovely  sights  and  sounds  of  morning 

Touch  soft  the  wakeful  nerve's  according  string.^ 

'  Bowles,  "Poems,"  Introduction  to  edition  of  1837. 
'"Hope."  3  "The  Tweed  Visited." 

4  "Elegy  Written  at  the  Hotwells,  Bristol." 


NEW  ATTITUDE  TOWARD  NATURE  201 

The   river   Itchen   brings    "solace    to    his   heart."'     After 
visiting  the  Cherwell  he  says: 

WTiate'er  betide,  yet  something  have  I  won 
Of  solace,  that  may  bear  me  on  serene.' 

In  the  midst  of  sorrow  he  is 

Thankful  that  still  the  landscape  beaming  bright 
Can  wake  the  wonted  sense  of  pure  dehght.3 

WTiat  Bowles  saw  in  Nature  was  largely  determined  by 
his  state  of  mind.  His  own  sadness  led  him  to  a  quick  percep- 
tion of  the  pensive  or  melancholy  suggestions  in  any  scene. 
He  loved  sequestered  streams,  romantic  vales,  the  hush  of 
evening.  The  sounds  he  heard  were  soft  and  plaintive. 
The  river  Wainsbeck  makes  "a  plaintive  song  among  its 
''mossy-scattered  rocks. "-^  He  listens  to  the  wind  and  seems 
to  hear  a  plaint  of  sorrow. ^     Sea  sounds  are 

Like  melodies  that  mourn  upon  the  lyre.'^ 

There  is  strange  music  in  the  stirring  wind 
When  lowers  the  autumnal  eve.' 

Of  the  bells  at  Ostend  he  says: 

And  hark!  with  lessening  cadence  now  they  fall; 
And  now,  along  the  white  and  level  tide, 
They  fling  their  melancholy  music  wide; 
Bidding  me  many  a  tender  thought  recall 
Of  summer  days,  and  those  dehghtful  years 
Wlien  from  an  ancient  tower,  in  Kfe's  fair  prime. 
The  mournful  magic  of  their  mingling  chime 
First  waked  my  wondering  childhood  into  tears.^ 

Again,  his  own  striving  after  self-control  leads  him  to  look 
with  pleasure  on  such  natural  objects  as  have  withstood  the 

I  "To  the  River  Itchen."  2  "The  River  Cherwell." 

3  "Elegy  Written  at  the  Hotwells,  Bristol." 

4  "The  River  Wainsbeck." 

^Ihid.  7  "Absence." 

6  "At  Tynemouth  Priory."  8  "The  Bells,  Ostend." 


202  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

shock  of  tempests.  Rugged  Malvern  Hill,  on  which  the 
"parting  sun  sits  smiling,"  teaches  him  a  lesson  of  victory 
over  grief,  and  he  exclaims, 

Ev'n  as  thou 
Dost  lift  in  the  pale  beam  thy  forehead  high, 
Proud  mountain !  whilst  the  scattered  vapours  fly 
Unheeded  round  thy  breast — so,  with  calm  brow 
The  shades  of  sorrow  I  may  meet,  and  wear 
The  smile  unchanged  of  peace,  though  pressed  by  care  !^ 

Some  of  the  brief  descriptions  in  these  sonnets  are  not  with- 
out a  certain  beauty  in  themselves,  as  in  this  passage  from 
''Dover  CHffs": 

On  these  white  clififs,  that  calm  above  the  flood 

Uprear  their  shadowing  heads,  and  at  their  feet 

Hear  not  the  surge  that  has  for  ages  beat, 

How  many  a  lonely  wanderer  has  stood ! 

And,  whilst  the  lifted  murmur  met  his  ear, 

And  o'er  the  distant  billows  the  still  eve 

Sailed  slow,  has  thought  of  all  his  heart  must  leave 

Tomorrow. 

But  here,  as  elsewhere  in  the  poems,  the  chief  thought  is 
human  grief;  and  the  most  important  characteristic  of  the 
poems,  taken  as  a  whole,  is  the  intimate  union  between  the 
spirit  of  a  man  and  the  spirit  of  Nature.  It  was  always 
Bowles'  theory,  says  Clark,  ^  that  Nature  is  the  true  subject 
of  poetry;  but  he  does  not,  in  his  later  work,  strike  so  true 
and  simple  a  note  as  in  these  early  sonnets. 

Such  general  statements  as  are  to  be  drawn  from  this 
study  of  specific  poets  can  be  more  advantageously  made 
after  the  chapters  on  "Fiction,"  "Travels,"  "Gardening," 
and  "Painting,"  for  these  chapters  offer  facts  that  modify  or 
confirm  the  impressions  gained  from  the  poetry. 

I  "At  Malvern."  3  Bowles,  "Memoir." 


CHAPTER  III 
FICTION 

The  great  achievement  of  the  eighteenth  century  was  in 
the  development  of  fiction.  The  famous  names  here  are, 
of  course,  Richardson,  Fielding,  Smollett,  and  Sterne.  After 
them.,  and  also  to  a  less  degree  contemporary  with  them, 
are  many  writers  of  fiction  the  quality  of  whose  work  has  con- 
signed them  to  the  list  of  "The  Neglected,  the  Disdained,  the 
Forgotten,"  and  in  most  cases  it  would  be  a  literary  misfor- 
tune if  by  any  chance  they  should  fall  into  the  fourth  class, 
"The  Resuscitated."  As  literature  they  are  almost  unread- 
able. It  is  only  from  the  historical  point  of  view  that  they 
can  arouse  any  real  interest.  For  the  present  purpose  I  do 
not  pretend  to  have  read  all  the  works  of  fiction  written  in  the 
eighteenth  century.  The  forty-three  mentioned  here  were 
selected  because  by  their  dates  they  represent  the  century  as 
a  whole,  and  because  they  represent  also  the  various  kinds  of 
fiction.  I  shall  first  speak  of  these  briefly  in  chronological 
order,  and  then  indicate  such  general  statements  as  may  seem 
the  legitimate  outcome  of  the  facts  presented.  The  one 
point  to  be  considered  is  the  use  made  of  external  Nature 
in  the  novel  or  romance. 

The  "Sir  Roger  de  Coverley"  papers  (Addison  and  Steele, 
1712)  are  continuous  narratives  marked  by  some  at  least 
of  the  characteristics  of  the  coming  English  novel.  Many 
of  these  papers  purport  to  be  written  from  the  country  and 
Will  Wimble  complains  that  they  "begin  to  smell  con- 
foundedly of  woods  and  meadows."  After  a  time  the  author 
finds  himself  growing  short  of  subjects  in  the  country,  and 

203 


204  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

returns  to  to\Mi  as  the  true  "  field  of  game  for  sportsmen  of 
his  species."  Though  written  from  the  country  the  papers 
have  nothing  about  country  scenes  except  frequent  phrases 
such  as,  "We  then  took  a  walk  in  the  fields,"  and  one  brief 
description  of  "a  solemn  walk  of  elms,"  unless,  indeed,  we 
might  add  the  pleasure  the  author  took  in  his  friend's  poultry 
yard.     The  stress  is  all  on  country  people. 

''Robinson  Crusoe"  (Defoe,  1719),  the  first  great  example 
of  the  voyage  imaginaire,  necessarily  regards  Nature  from 
the  point  of  view  of  immediate  utility.  The  whole  in- 
terest of  the  book  rests  on  the  mechanical  ingenuity 
whereby  man  subdues  Nature.  There  are  few  if  any 
passages  where  Robinson  Crusoe  is  represented  as  being 
in  any  way  sensitive  to  the  beauty  or  charm  of  Nature. 

In  'Tamela"  (Richardson,  1740)  there  is  much  talk  about 
the  value  of  travel  in  Great  Britain  and  on  the  continent,  but 
there  is  not  a  word  about  the  scenery  of  the  places  visited. 
Pamela  sums  up  her  impressions  of  travel  in  England  in 
one  sentence.  "These  excursions  have  given  me  infinite 
delight  and  pleasure,  and  enlarged  my  notions  of  the  wealth 
and  power  of  the  kingdom"  (Vol.  Ill,  p.  304).  When 
Lord  B.  and  Pamela  are  spending  their  honeymoon  in  their 
Kentish  house  they  plan  certain  improvements  such  as  cutting 
a  vista  through  the  coppice;  they  train  the  vines  around  the 
windows  because  they  love  the  mingled  odors  of  woodbines 
and  jessamines;  and  they  listen  for  two  hours  at  a  stretch  to 
the  "responsive  songs  of  two  warbling  nightingales"  (Vol. 
II,  p.  163).  Earlier  in  their  career,  during  a  walk  in  the 
garden,  the  fragrance  from  a  bank  of  flowers  inspires  Lord 
B.  to  sing  a  typical  eighteenth-century  song  of  which  this  is 
one  stanza : 

The  purple  violet,  damask  rose, 
Each,  to  delight  your  senses,  blows. 


FICTION  205 

The  lilies  ope  as  you  appear; 
And  all  the  beauties  of  the  year 
Diffuse  their  odours  at  your  feet, 
Who  give  to  ev'ry  flower  its  sweet. 

There  is  not  a  hint  in  the  book  of  any  feeling  toward 
Nature  except  such  as  is  characteristic  of  the  pseudo-classical 
poetry. 

In  ''Joseph  Andrews"  (Fielding,  1742)  there  are  four  brief 
passages  in  which  Nature  is  touched  upon.  Two  of  these  are 
evidendy  meant  as  satires  on  the  ordinary  descriptions  of 
sunrise.     The  first  one  is  as  follows : 

''Aurora  now  began  to  show  her  blooming  cheeks  over  the 
hills,  whilst  ten  millions  of  feathered  songsters,  in  jocund 
chorus,  repeated  odes  a  thousand  times  sweeter  than  those 
of  our  laureate"  (p.  43;  cf.  p.  219).  The  longest  descrip- 
tion is  of  a  vale  with  a  winding  rivulet,  many  trees,  and  soil 
"spread  with  a  verdure  which  no  paint  could  imitate,"  the 
whole  place  being  such  as  "might  have  raised  romantic  ideas 
in  older  minds  than  those  of  Joseph  and  Fanny"  (p.  226). 

In  "Jonathan  Wild"  (Fielding,  1743)  there  are  no  refer- 
ences to  the  world  of  Nature. 

In  "David  Simple"  (Sarah  Fielding,  1744)  the  search  of 
the  hero  for  a  true  friend  is  so  complicated  and  absorbing 
an  occupation  that  there  is  no  room  for  observation  of  the 
external  world. 

In  "Clarissa  Harlowe"  (Richardson,  1748)  there  is  one 
simile  drawn  from  Nature  (Vol.  II,  p.  478),  one  mention  of 
the  "variegated  prospects"  from  Hampstead  Heath  (Vol. 
Ill,  p.  198),  and  one  reference  to  an  overgrown  ivy  so  thick 
as  to  be  a  shelter  from  the  rain  (Vol.  I,  p.  394). 

In  "Roderick  Random"  (Smollett,  1748)  there  are  no 
references  to  Nature. 

Of  the  eight  passages  referring  to  Nature  in  "Tom  Jones" 


2o6  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

(Fielding,  1749)  two  are  satirical  of  the  conventional  descrip- 
tions and  similitudes  of  the  day. 

Aurora  now  first  opened  her  casement,  Anglice,  the  day  began  to 
break  (Vol.  II,  p.  9). 

As  in  the  month  of  June,  the  damask  rose,  which  chance  hath 
planted  among  the  lihes,  with  their  candid  hues  mixes  his  vermihon;  or, 
as  some  playful  heifer  in  the  pleasant  month  of  May  diffuses  her  odorif- 
erous breath  over  the  flowery  meadows;  or  as,  in  the  blooming  month 
of  April,  the  gentle,  constant  dove,  perched  on  some  fair  bough,  sits 
meditating  on  her  mate,  so  sits  Sophia,  looking  a  hundred  charms,  and 
breathing  as  many  sweets,  her  thoughts  being  fixed  on  her  Tommy  (Vol. 
II,  p.  61). 

A  third  passage,  also  satirical,  is,  ''And  now  the  moon 
began  to  put  forth  her  silver  light,  as  the  poets  call  it  (though 
she  looked  at  that  time  more  like  a  piece  of  copper) "  (Vol,  II, 
p.  172).  There  is  one  appreciative  reference  to  the  attractive 
scenery  of  Devon  and  Dorset.  The  description  of  Mr. 
Allworthy's  estate  which  owed  "less  to  art  than  to  nature,"  is 
modern  in  tone  and  marks  the  break  already  made  with  the 
formal  garden  (Vol.  I,  p.  12).  In  another  passage  there  is  an 
expression  of  pleasure  in  a  wide  prospect,  seen  by  moon- 
light, for  "the  solemn  light  which  the  moon  casts  on  all 
objects  is  beyond  expression  beautiful,  especially  to  an 
imagination  which  is  desirous  of  cultivating  melancholy 
ideas"  (Vol.  I,  p.  422).  The  other  passages  are  of  no  sig- 
nificance. 

"  Peter  Wilkins  "  (Robert  Paltock,  1751)  is  the  first  and 
most  famous  of  the  successors  of  "  Robinson  Crusoe."  The 
scene  of  Peter's  trials  and  successes  is  laid  in  Africa  and  the 
southern  islands.  There  is  but  one  brief  passage  in  which 
there  is  even  the  slightest  indication  that  the  author  thought 
of  Nature  from  any  but  the  utilitarian  point  of  view. 

"  Pompey  the  Little"  (Coventry,  1751)  is  a  romance 
ostensibly  relating  with  serio-comic  minuteness  the  life  and 


FICTION  207 

adventures  of  a  lapdog  much  in  the  manner  of  the  novele 

picaresco  of   Mendozo  and  Aleman,  but  really  dealing  in 

thinly  disguised  social  satire.     It  makes  no  use  of  Nature, 

unless  we  may  count  poor  Mr.  Rhymer  who  looks  at  the 

moon  and  quotes  Milton  to  the  extravagant  amusement  of  a 

group  of  dandies  who  observe  him. 

In  "Peregrine  Pickle"  (Smollett,  1751)  Peregrine  sings  one 

of  the  conventional  songs  to  Emilia,  beginning. 

Thy  charms  divinely  bright  appear 
And  add  new  splendor  to  the  year. 

This  is  the  only  use  of  Nature  in  the  book.  The  eighteen 
months  of  travel  in  France  and  Holland  do  not  suggest  a 
single  phrase  about  the  scenery  of  those  countries. 

Mrs.  Lennox's  ''The  Female  Quixote"  (1752)  is  a  record 
of  the  absurd  and  futile  attempts  of  a  beautiful  maiden  unfor- 
tunately brought  up  on  "the  languishing  love  romances  of 
the  Calprenedos  and  the  Scuderis"  to  make  over  the  practical 
world  about  her  according  to  the  laws  of  love  and  chivalry. 
Almost  all  her  adventures  occur  in  the  country,  but  there 
are  only  two  references  to  the  out-door  world.  Of  the  estate 
of  the  marquis  it  is  said:  "The  most  laborious  endeavours 
of  art  had  been  expended  to  make  it  appear  like  the  beautiful 
product  of  wild  uncultivated  nature." 

In  another  passage  the  heroine  is  said  to  lead  her  unhappy 
friend  into  the  garden,  "  supposing  a  person  whose  uneasiness 
proceeded  from  love  would  be  pleased  with  the  sight  of  groves 
and  streams." 

In  "Ferdinand  Count  Fathom"  (Smollett,  1753)  there  is 
merely  a  conventional  description  of  a  furious  storm. 

In  "Sir  Charles  Grandison"  (Richardson,  1753)  there  are 
two  interesting  passages  concerning  the  estate  of  Sir  Charles. 
It  was  his  aim  not  "to  force  and  distort  nature,  but  to  help 
it  as  he  finds  it,  without  letting  art  be  seen  in  his  works,  where 


2o8  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

he  can  possibly  avoid  it  "(Vol.  II,  p.  276).  A  part  of  the  es- 
tate was  evidently  laid  out  according  to  the  ideas  of  Kent  and 
Brown,  but  the  orchard  ''with  its  regular  semicircle  rows  of 
pears,  apples,  cherries,  plums  and  apricots,  arranged  accord- 
ing to  the  season  of  flowering,"  belonged  to  the  days  of  Sir 
Thomas,  when  symmetry  and  regularity  ruled  (Vol.  IV,  p. 
238).  In  this  novel  also  is  Richardson's  frequently  quoted 
description  of  Savoy,  "  equally  noted  for  its  poverty  and  rocky 
mountains  ....  one  of  the  worst  countries  under  heaven" 
(Vol.  Ill,  pp.  138-42). 

We  have  now  passed  the  middle  of  the  century  and  there 
has  not  been  in  the  works  of  fiction  mentioned  a  single  passage 
indicating  any  close  observation  or  love  of  Nature,  and  hardly 
a  passage  showing  any  knowledge  of  Nature  except  as  found 
in  parks  and  gardens.  But  in  1756-66  there  appeared  a 
fantastic  novel  by  Thomas  Amory  called  "The  Life  of  John 
Buncle,"  which  is  notable  in  the  present  study  because  nearly 
all  the  adventures  whereby  the  hero  gains  and  loses  his  seven 
Socinian  wives  occur  among  the  mountains  of  Westmoreland 
and  Cumberland.  We  have  but  to  compare  the  book  with 
Mrs.  Ward's  ''Robert  Elsmere"  to  see  how  extravagantly 
unreal  are  most  of  Amory's  descriptions.  They  often  contain 
marvels  equal  to  those  of  "  Vathek."  The  mountains  are 
made  as  lofty  and  dangerous  as  the  most  inaccessible  Alps, 
and  they  are  so  heaped  in  together  that  progress  from  one 
valley  to  another  would  be  out  of  the  question  were  it  not  for 
convenient  caves  and  natural  tunnels  by  which  the  venture- 
some hero  makes  his  way  from  vale  to  vale.  But  in  the  midst 
of  these  absurdities  and  impossibilities,  there  are  occasional 
passages  of  effective  description,  and  of  real  appreciation  of 
wild  mountain  scenery.  It  is  an  entirely  new  note  in  fiction 
and  it  followed  close  upon  the  poem  by  Dr.  Dalton,  which  was 
probably  the  first  poetical  tribute  to  the  scenery  of  the  Lakes. 


FICTION  209 

Mr.  Amory  aptly  describes  mountain  tarns  as  pools  of 
"black,  standing,  unfathomable  water"  (Vol.  I,  p.  290). 
He  frequently  gives  enthusiastic  descriptions  of  the  views 
from  mountain  tops.  In  one  passage  he  says:  "I  climbed 
up  to  the  top  by  a  steep,  craggy  way.  This  was  very  difficult 
and  dangerous,  but  I  had  an  enchanting  prospect  when  I 

gained  the  summit  of  the  hill The  vast  hills  had  a 

fine  effect  in  the  view"  (Vol.  II,  p.  122;  cf.  Vol.  I,  p.  167). 
Of  Westmoreland  he  says : 

The  Vale  of  Keswick  and  Lake  of  Derwentwater,  in  Cumberland, 
are  thought  by  those  who  have  been  there  to  be  the  finest  point  of  view 
in  England,  and  extremely  beautiful  they  are,  far  more  so  than  Dr. 
Dalton  has  been  able  to  make  them  appear  in  his  descriptive  poem; 
or  than  the  Doctor's  brother,  Mr.  Dalton,  has  painted  them  in  his  fine 
drawings;  and  yet  they  are  inferior  in  charms  to  the  vale,  the  lake, 
the  brooks,  the  shaded  sides  of  the  surrounding  mountains,  and  the 
tuneful  falls  of  water  to  which  we  came  in  Westmoreland.  In  all  the 
world,  I  beHeve,  there  is  not  a  more  glorious  scene  to  be  seen  in  the  fine 
time  of  the  year  (Vol.  Ill,  p.  93). 

And,  again,  ''Westmoreland  is  the  most  beautiful  and  roman- 
tic solitude  in  the  world"  (Vol.  Ill,  p.  151).  The  first  volume  of 
Amory's  book  appeared  in  1756.  The  other  volumes,  written 
at  intervals  thereafter,  were  pubHshed  in  1766.  The  best 
passages  are  in  the  third  volume,  but  at  the  latest  they  must 
have  been  written  three  years  before  Gray  made  his  tour  to 
the  lakes.  It  would  be  interesting  to  know  whether  Gray 
had  read  ''John  B uncle,"  as  Amory  had  Dalton's  poem.  At 
any  rate  Amory's  novel  shows  how  early  the  Lake  District 
was  visited  by  lovers  of  the  beautiful,  for  he  not  only  des- 
cribes it  himself,  but  he  speaks  as  if  there  were  already  a 
good  deal  of  discussion  as  to  the  rival  charms  of  Keswick  and 
Westmoreland. 

In  "Rasselas"  (Dr.  Johnson,  1759)  the  scenery  of  the 
Happy  Valley  is  briefly  described.      Since  it  was  a  spot 


2IO  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

where  ''all  the  diversities  of  the  world  were  brought  together, 
the  blessings  of  nature  were  collected,  and  its  evils  were  ex- 
tracted and  excluded,"  it  would  be  in  vain  to  look  for  first- 
hand description.  We  have  merely  an  impossible  combination 
of  millennial  details.  After  leaving  the  Happy  Valley  Imlac 
wanders  through  the  world,  but  his  only  impression  from 
Nature  is  a  feeling  of  repulsion  at  the  "barren  uniformity"  of 
the  ocean.  When  he  tried  to  be  a  poet  he  did,  to  be  sure,  turn 
to  Nature.  He  "  ranged  mountains  and  deserts  for  images  and 
similitudes"  in  true  classical  style.  He  studied  trees  and 
flowers,  he  wandered  along  rivulets,  and  sometimes  he  watched 
the  clouds,  for  "  to  a  poet  nothing  can  be  useless."  Dr.  John- 
son's use  of  Nature  in  ''Rasselas"  is  tasteless  and  insipid. 

Sterne's  one  allusion  to  Nature  in  "Tristram  Shandy" 
(1759-67)  is  too  characteristic  to  be  omitted.  It  occurs  in 
the  description  of  a  journey. 

There  is  nothing  more  terrible  to  travel-writers  than  a  large  rich 
plain,  especially  if  it  is  without  great  rivers  or  bridges;  and  presents 
nothing  to  the  eye  but  one  unvaried  picture  of  plenty;  for  after  they 
have  once  told  you  that  it  is  delicious  or  delightful  (as  the  case  may 
happen);  that  the  soil  was  grateful  and  that  nature  pours  out  all  her 
abundance,  etc.,  they  have  then  a  large  plain  upon  their  hands  which 
they  know  not  what  to  do  with  and  which  is  of  little  or  no  use  to  them  but 
to  carry  them  to  the  next  town. 

In  "Almoran  and  Hamet"  (Hawkesworth,  1761),  an  ori- 
ental tale,  there  is  no  use  of  Nature  except  in  a  few  far-fetched 
similes,  and  one  or  two  phrases  about  the  lengthening  evening 
shadows. 

In  "Sir  Launcelot  Greaves"  (Smollett,  1762)  there  is  no 
reference  to  Nature  except  in  a  sarcastic  allusion  to  poets  who 
cannot  talk  of  a  beautiful  girl  without  "blending  the  lily  and 
the  rose  and  bringing  in  a  parcel  of  similes  of  cowslips, 
carnations,  pinks,  and  daisies." 


FICTION  211 

Mrs.  Brooke's  ''The  History  of  Lady  Julia  Mandeville" 
(1763)  has  a  hero  and  a  heroine  who  rejoice  in  "a,  genuine 
taste  for  elegant  nature,"  and  their  letters  contain  some 
descriptive  passages  evidently  intended  to  combine  vividness 
and  elegance.  The  gardens  and  parks  behind  the  house  are 
"romantic  beyond  the  wantonness  of  imagination,"  and  the 
whole  adjoining  country  has  "every  charm  of  lovely  un- 
adorned nature."  Beyond  the  house  there  is  "an  avenue 
of  the  tallest  trees  which  lets  in  the  prospect  of  a  fruitful 
valley,  bounded  at  a  distance  by  a  mountain,  down  the  sides 
of  which  rushes  a  foaming  cascade,  which  spreads  into  a 
thousand  meandering  streams  in  the  vale  below."  In  the 
woods  are  rustic  temples  "in  the  most  elegant  style  of 
simplicity."  At  the  close  of  a  walk  they  come  to  a  grotto 
"wildly  lovely,  its  entrance  almost  hidden  by  the  vines  that 
flaunt  over  its  top,"  and  there  they  find  an  opportune  repast 
with  servants  in  attendance.  The  motherly  care  wnth  which 
Mrs.  Brooke  preserves  her  delicately  bred  characters  from 
roughness  or  fatigue  or  hunger  interferes  somewhat  w^ith  her 
attempts  to  represent  "simple,  unadorned  nature,"  and  in 
spite  of  her  protests  against  "the  gloomy  haunts  of  London" 
she  never  quite  gets  out  into  the  free  country.  Her  raptures 
have  a  forced,  made-up  air.  The  exclamiatory  ecstacy  of 
such  passages  as  the  following  is  certainly  open  to  suspicion : 

What  a  divine  morning !  how  lovely  is  the  face  of  nature !  The  blue 
serene  of  Italy  with  the  lovely  verdure  of  England!  But  behold  a  more 
charming  object  than  nature  herself!  The  sweet,  the  young,  the  bloom- 
ing Lady  Julia!" 

There  is  a  more  genuine  ring  to  Lady  Wilmot's  protest, 

"The   finest  landscape  is  a  dreary   wild   without  people." 

Most  of  the  action  in  Mrs.  Brooke's  second  novel,  "Emily 

Montague,"  is  laid  in  Canada,  which  country  Mrs.  Brooke 

had  visited.     The  book  represents  her  enjoyment  of  the 


212  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

Strange  scenes  about  her.  The  beauty  of  the  river  Mont- 
morenci  more  than  repays  Miss  Arabella  Fermor  for  the 
fatigues  of  a  voyage  across  the  Atlantic.  The  hero  finds  that 
the  streams  and  mountains  of  England  seem  petty  when 
he  is  in  the  presence  of  the  majesty  and  sublimity  of  the 
western  world.  The  descriptions  are  perhaps  over-elaborate, 
but  they  are  not  ineffective,  and  they  show  much  closer 
knowledge  of  natural  phenomena  and  more  real  interest  in 
them,  than  do  the  tamer  passages  in  the  preceding  novel. 

In  the  famous  "Castle  of  Otranto"  (Walpole,  1764)  there  is 
no  use  whatever  of  Nature. 

In  Brooke's  "Fool  of  Quahty"  (1766)  the  sky  is  fitly  spoken 
of  as  "a  stupendous  expanse  sumptuously  furnished  with  a 
profusion  of  planets."  Certainly  no  other  sort  of  sky  would 
have  presumed  to  bend  down  over  Mr.  Brooke's  stupendous 
little  prig  of  a  hero.  The  chief  use  of  Nature,  however,  is 
in  similes  for  Harry's  countenance  which  is  "like  sunshine 
on  a  dark  day,"  or  a  "lake  on  a  summer's  evening  showing 
heaven  in  its  bosom,"  or,  if  bathed  in  tears  as  it  frequently 
was,  "like  the  sun  in  a  shower." 

The  charm  of  "The  Vicar  of  Wakefield"  (Goldsmith,  1766) 
rests  upon  its  sweetness  and  purity,  its  quaint  humor,  and  its 
quality  of  fresh,  open-air  wholesomeness.  Its  use  of  Nature 
is  of  the  most  casual,  unemphasized  sort.  There  are  not 
in  the  whole  work  twenty-five  lines  concerning  the  country 
scenes  in  which  all  the  action  takes  place.  And  yet  these 
simple,  direct  phrases  have  a  magical  power  of  suggestion. 
The  seat  under  the  hawthorn  where  the  family  drank  their 
tea  and  watched  the  sunset,  the  dinner  in  the  hayfield,  the 
brief  description  of  the  little  farm,  have  in  them  the  power 
of  reality  and  do  more  to  give  a  free,  out-of-doors  atmosphere 
to  the  story  than  all  Mrs.  Brooke's  panegyrics.  But  here, 
as  in  Goldsmith's  other  works,  the  stress  is  on  the  characters, 


FICTION  213 

and   the   little,    truthful   pictures   of   Nature   seem   almost 
accidental. 

In  Sterne's  ''Sentimental  Journey"  (1768)  there  is  no  use 
of  external  Nature. 

Of  Mackenzie's  "Man  of  Feeling"  (1771)  the  same  may 
be  said  unless,  indeed,  we  except  one  reference  to  a  scene 
"not  unlike  Salvator's  back-grounds." 

Smollett's  "Humphrey  Clinker"  (1771)  is  the  last  of  his 

novels  and  the  only  one  in  which  there  is  effective  use  of 

Nature.     Smollett  was  bom  and  brought  up  in  the  valley  of 

the  Leven;  and  he  spent  some  months  there  before  the  final 

trip  to  Italy  for  his  health.     He  was  in  Leghorn  about  a  year 

before  he  died,  and  during  this  year  he  wrote  "  Humphrey 

Clinker."     It  recounts  the  travels  of  Matthew  Bramble  in 

search  of  health.     The  love  of  Nature  comes  out  chiefly  in  the 

letters  supposed  to  be  written  from  Scotland.     He  speaks 

with  pleasure  of  the  "huge  dusky  mountains  of  the  West 

Highlands,  piled  one  over  another,"  and  of  Loch  Lomond, 

that  "  surprising  body  of  pure,  transparent  water,  unfathom- 

ably  deep  in  many  places,"  with  its  green,  wooded  islands. 

His  delight  in  the  wild  scenery  of  Scotland  is  thus  expressed : 

I  have  seen  the  Lago  di  Gardi,  Albano,  De  Vico,  Bolsena,  and 
Geneva,  and  upon  my  honor,  I  prefer  Loch  Lomond  to  them  all;  a 
preference  which  is  certainly  owing  to  the  verdant  islands  that  seem  to 
float  upon  its  surface,  affording  the  most  enchanting  objects  of  repose 
to  the  excursive  view.  Nor  are  the  banks  destitute  of  beauties,  which 
even  partake  of  the  sublime.  On  this  side  they  display  a  sweet  variety 
of  woodland,  cornfield,  and  pasture,  with  several  agreeable  villas  emerg- 
ing as  it  were  out  of  the  lake,  till  at  some  distance  the  prospect 
terminates  in  huge  mountains,  covered  with  heath,  which  being  in  the 
bloom,  affords  a  very  rich  covering  of  purple.  Everything  here  is 
romantic  beyond  imagination Above  the  house  is  a  roman- 
tic glen  or  cleft  of  a  mountain  covered  with  hanging  woods,  having 
at  bottom  a  stream  of  fine  water  that  forms  a  number  of  cascades  in 
its  descent  to  form  the  Leven;   so   that   the  scene  is  quite   enchant- 


214  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

ing This   country  is  amazingly  -wild,  especially   towards   the 

mountains,  which  are  heaped  upon  the  backs  of  one  another,  making 
a  most  stupendous  appearance  of  savage  nature,  with  hardly  any  signs 
of  cultivation,  or  even  of  population.  All  is  subUmity,  silence,  and 
soHtude  (pp.  261-65). 

On  the  country  of  Ossian   he  says: 

These  are  the  lonely  hills  of  Morven,  where  Fingal  and  his  heroes 
enjoyed  the  same  pastime.  I  feel  an  enthusiastic  pleasure  when  I  sur\'ey 
the  brown  heath  that  Ossian  was  wont  to  tread;    and  hear  the  wind 

whistle  through  the  bending  grass The  poems  of  Ossian  are  in 

every  mouth. 

Smollett's  love  for  the  Leven,  that  "charming  stream 
....  transparent,  pastoral,  delightful,"  is  further  evidenced 
by  this  ''  Ode  to  the  Leven,"  a  single  stanza  of  which  may 
be  quoted  here: 

Pure  stream  in  whose  transparent  wave 

My  youthful  limbs  I  wont  to  lave; 

No  torrents  stain  thy  limpid  source, 

No  rocks  impede  thy  dimpling  course, 

That  sweedy  warbles  o'er  its  bed, 

With  white  round  polished  pebbles  spread  (p.  262). 

Smollett  has  one  character  who  labored  under  aypo(f)offca, 
or  horror  of  green  fields,  but  that  was  manifestly  not  his  own 
case.  Though  he  completely  ignored  Nature  in  his  other 
books,  ''Humphrey  Clinker"  is  ample  proof  of  his  sensitive- 
ness to  Nature  and  his  descriptive  power.  It  needed  a  touch 
of  homesickness  and  the  vivifying  force  of  early  associations 
to  bring  the  feeling  to  the  surface,  but  as  soon  as  it  found 
expression  there  was  revealed  a  closeness  of  observation  and 
a  genuineness  of  affection  for  Nature  in  her  milder  forms  not 
found  in  any  novel  before  ''Humphrey  Clinker."  The  near- 
est approach  to  it  is  in  the  fantastic  work  of  Amory. 

In  Clara  Reeve's  "Old  English  Baron"  (1777)  there  is  one 


f  OP  THE 

'    UNIVERSITY   I  FICTION  215 


CF 


brTef^-€oavemf6hal  passage  about  the  morning  serenade  of 
the  birds  and  the  fragrance  of  the  woodbine  (p.  27). 

In  "Julia  de  Roubigne"  (1777)  Mackenzie  makes  more  use 
of  Nature  than  he  had  in  "The  Man  of  Feeling."  JuHa  and 
Savillon  are  both  represented  as  finding  pleasure  in  the 
beautiful  country  around  them.  In  one  letter  Julia  says: 
"Methinks  I  should  hate  to  have  been  bom  in  a  town;  when 
I  say  my  native  brook,  or  my  native  hill,  I  talk  of  friends  of 
whom  the  remembrance  warms  my  heart."  In  the  serenity 
of  Nature  she  finds  calmness  after  spiritual  tumult.  Belville, 
the  home  of  Julia,  is  described  as  "a  venerable  pile,  the 
remains  of  ancient  Gothic  magnificence."  The  most  attrac- 
tive part  of  the  estate  was  "a  wild  and  rocky  dell,  where 
tasteless  wealth  had  never  warred  on  nature,  nor  even  ele- 
gance refined  or  embellished  her  beauties.  The  walks  are 
only  worn  by  the  tread  of  shepherds  and  the  banks  only 
smoothed  by  the  feeding  of  their  flocks."  There  is  great 
regret  expressed  when  the  new  owner  of  Belville  cuts  down 
the  trees,  and  puts  in  modern  adornments  "which  they 
call  Chinese."  In  this  novel  Mackenzie  shows  a  real  though 
narrow  appreciation  of  free,  unsubdued  Nature. 

In  Fanny  Burney's  "Evelina"  (1778)  the  only  touch  of 
Nature  is  a  criticism  of  Vauxhall  Gardens  as  beins:  too 
formal  and  regular.  In  "Cecilia"  (1782)  there  is  no  use  of 
Nature. 

William  Beckford's  "Vathek"  (1784)  is  an  extravaganza 
where  there  is  no  pretense  of  representing  Nature  as  it  is. 
A  single  quotation  will  give  the  general  tone.  It  is  a  descrip- 
tion of  a  high  mountain: 

Upon  it  grew  a  hundred  thickets  of  eglantine  and  other  fragrant 
shrubs,  a  hundred  arbours  of  roses,  jessamines  and  honey-suckle,  as 
many  clumps  of  orange  trees,  cedar,  and  citron  whose  branches  inter- 
woven with  the  palm,  the  pomegranate,  and  the  vine,  presented  every 


2i6  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

luxury  that  could  regale  the  eye  or  the  taste.  The  ground  was  strewed 
with  violets,  harebells,  and  pansies,  in  the  midst  of  which  sprang  forth 
tufts  of  jonquils,  hyacinths,  and  carnations,  with  every  other  perfume 
that  impregnates  the  air. 

In  Dr.  Moore's  "Zeluco"  (1786)  neither  the  hero  himself, 
that  "finished  model  of  depravity,"  nor  any  of  the  characters 
associated  with  him,  show  any  knowledge  of  the  existence  of 
any  world  outside  their  own  intrigues  and  counter-intrigues. 

Mrs.  Inchbald's  ''A  Simple  Story"  (1791)  is  a  study  of  true 
and  false  education.  There  is  in  it  no  word  concerning 
Nature.  The  same  may  be  said  of  her  ''Nature  and  Art," 
published  in  1796. 

Godwin's  story,  ''Caleb  Williams"  (1794),  has  one  brief, 
conventional  description  of  a  sunrise.  This  ignoring  of 
Nature  seems  the  more  surprising  in  Godwin  since  his  next 
novel,  published  ten  years  later,  "Fleetwood,  or  the  New 
Man  of  Feeling,"  is  full  of  the  wild  scenery  of  Wales  and  is 
really  the  study  of  a  character  made  sensitive  by  early  and 
constant  communion  with  Nature.  But  this  novel  would 
carry  us  into  the  next  century. 

Another  novel  of  some  repute  toward  the  close  of  the  cen- 
tury is  Robert  Bage's  "Hermsprong,  or  Man  as  He  Is  Not" 
(1796).  It  was  read  chiefly  for  its  political  bias  toward  the 
popular  democratical  doctrines.  The  scene  is  laid  chiefly 
in  the  country  and  there  are  occasional  pleasant  bits  of 
description.  They  are  unimportant,  but  the  book  cannot 
be  dismissed  without  a  reference  to  the  hero  who  was  com- 
pelled, by  lack  of  funds,  to  seek  a  country  retreat,  and  who 
fortified  his  failing  resolution  to  leave  the  beloved  city  by 
quoting  Thomson's  "Seasons." 

The  two  authors  who  first  made  extensive  use  of  Nature 
in  fiction  are  Mrs.  Charlotte  Smith  and  Mrs.  Ann  Radclifle. 

Mrs.  Smith  shows  in  her  novels  and  poems  a  really  ardent 


FICTION  217 

enjoyment,  though  seldom  a  close  knowledge,  of  Nature. 
She  indulges  in  long  and  animated  descriptions  of  places  of 
which  she  has  only  vaguely  heard  and  the  result  is  sometimes 
as  amazing  as  the  scenes  in  "Vathek."  In  "The  Old  Manor 
House"  (1793),  her  best  work,  a  part  of  the  scene  is  laid  in 
the  northern  United  States  and  Canada.  Here  is  her  idea  of 
spring  in  that  region: 

The  forest  in  only  a  few  days  after  the  severest  weather,  which 
had  buried  the  whole  country  in  snow,  burst  into  bloom,  and  presented, 
beneath  the  tulip  tree  and  the  magnoha,  a  more  brilliant  variety  of 
flowers  than  art  can  collect  in  the  most  cultivated  European  garden. 

The  following  is  a  description  of  Canada  on  the  banks  of 
the  St.  Lawrence,  "a  very  few  days"  after  the  severest  winter 
weather : 

On  the  opposite  side  of  the  river  lay  an  extensive  savannah,  alive 
with  cattle  and  coloured  with  such  a  variety  of  swamp  plants  that  their 
colour,  even  at  that  distance,  detracted  something  from  the  vivid  green 

of  the  new-sprung  grass The  acclivity  on  which  the  tents  stood 

sinking  very  suddenly  on  the  left,  there  gave  place  to  a  cypress  swamp 
....  while  the  rocks  rising  suddenly  and  sharply  were  clothed  with 
wood  of  various  species;  the  evergreen  oak,  the  scarlet  oak,  the  tulip 
tree  and  magnolia,  seemed  bound  together  by  festoons  of  flowers,  some 
resembling  the  convohoiluses  of  our  garden,  and  others  the  various  sorts 
of  clematis  with  vegenias  and  the  Virginia  creeper  ....  beneath  these 
fragrant  wreaths  that  wound  about  the  trees,  tufts  of  rhododendrons, 
and  azalia,  of  andromedas  and  calmias,  grew  in  the  luxuriant  beauty; 
and  strawberries  already  ripening,  or  even  ripe,  peeped  forth  among 
the  rich  vegetation  of  grass  and  flowers. 

Mrs.  Smith's  imagination  certainly  had  other  laws  than 
the  dull  ones  imposed  by  the  facts  of  the  case.  She  could 
hardly  have  mixed  up  zones  and  seasons  and  flowers  and 
fruits  more  successfully  if  she  had  tried.  But  the  notable 
point  here  is  that  there  w^as  in  her  mind  an  instinctive  and 
inevitable  dwelling  upon  the  scenery  of  the  country  through 


2i8  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

which  she  led  her  hero.  The  EngHsh  scenes  are  much 
better.  The  following  passage  shows  well  her  emotional 
openness  to  the  influence  of  Nature. 

Just  as  he  arrived  at  the  water,  from  the  deep  gloom  of  the  tall  firs 
through  which  he  passed,  the  moon  appeared  behind  the  opposite  cop- 
pices, and  threw  her  long  line  of  trembling  radiance  on  the  water.  It 
was  a  cold  but  clear  evening,  and,  though  early  in  November,  the  trees 
were  not  yet  entirely  stripped  of  their  discoloured  leaves;  a  low  wind 
sounded  hollow  through  the  firs  and  stone  pines  over  his  head,  and 
then  faintly  sighed  among  the  reeds  that  crowded  into  the  water;  no 
other  sound  was  heard  but,  at  distant  intervals,  the  cry  of  the  wild  fowl 
concealed  among  them,  or  the  dull  murmur  of  the  current,  which  was 
now  low.  Orlando  had  hardly  ever  felt  himself  so  impressed  with  those 
feelings  which  inspire  poetic  effusions:  Nature  appeared  to  pause  and 
to  ask  the  turbulent  and  troubled  heart  of  man,  whether  his  silly  pursuits 
were  worth  the  toil  he  undertook  for  them.  Peace  and  tranquillity 
seemed  here  to  have  retired  to  a  transient  abode;  and  Orlando,  as 
slowly  he  traversed  the  narrow  path  over  ground  made  hollow  by  the 
roots  of  these  old  trees,  stepped  as  lightly  as  if  he  feared  to  disturb  them. 
Insensibly  he  began  to  compare  this  scene,  the  scene  he  every  day  saw 
of  rural  beauty  and  rural  content  with  those  into  which  his  destiny  was 
about  to  lead  him. 

Mrs.  Barbauld  says  that  Mrs.  Smith  was  one  of  the  first 
to  introduce  description  of  scenery  into  fiction.  That  she 
had  predecessors  we  have  already  seen,  but  it  is  true  that  she 
laid  much  more  stress  on  Nature  than  had  any  other  novelist 
except  Mrs.  Radcliffe.  Mrs.  Smith  has  frequent  descrip- 
tions that  are  not  needed  for  the  progress  of  the  plot  or  the 
development  of  the  characters,  but  are  written  purely  for 
their  own  sake.  She  also  often  uses  Nature  as  dramatic  back- 
ground and  she  represents  her  hero  as  deeply  influenced  by 
Nature.  Mrs.  Smith's  poems  further  attest  her  love  of 
Nature.     In  one  poem  she  says, 

Farewell,  Aruna !  on  whose  varied  shore 
My  early  vows  were  paid  to  Nature's  shrine. 


FICTION  219 

In  another  she  addresses  the  South  Downs, 

Ah,  hills  beloved,  where  once  a  happy  child, 

Your  beechen  shades,  your  turfs,  your  flowers  among, 

I  wove  your  bluebells  into  garlands  wild. 

Mrs.  Smith's  life  was  a  most  unhappy  one,  and  she  found  her 
real  comfort  in  Nature. 

Mrs.  Raddiffe's  ''Romance  of  a  Forest"  (1791)  appeared 
two  years  before  ''The  Old  Manor  House,"  and  "The  Mys- 
teries of  Udolpho"  (1794)  one  year  after.  In  these  novels  by 
Mrs.  Radcliffe  the  romantic  landscape  was  presented  in  its 
complete  form.  Except  in  the  most  rapid  parts  of  the  story 
there  is  greater  stress  on  the  scenery  than  on  the  characters. 
Emily,  Adeline,  and  Clara  seldom  indulge  in  an  emotion  with- 
out first  describing  the  dell  or  glen  or  forest  glade,  to  which 
they  have  wandered.  They  are  never  too  deeply  agitated  to 
observe  the  glories  of  sunrise  and  sunset.  A  wide  view^  can 
soothe  any  grief.  This  susceptibihty  of  the  heroines  to 
Nature  is  represented  as  one  of  their  greatest  charms.  Mrs. 
Radchffe  had  never  seen  most  of  the  scenes  she  described. 
She  had  never  been  in  France,  Italy,  or  Switzerland.  The 
landscapes  she  gives  us  do  not  bear  the  stamp  of  reality. 
They  are  ideal  compositions  but  they  are  never  merely  an 
inventory  nor  are  they  impossible  combinations.  Though 
not  exactly  true,  they  can  be  read  with  pleasure  because  the 
details  are  blended  into  harmonious  and  lovely  pictures 
which  seem  to  have  caught  the  actual  spirit  of  the  places 
described.  She  delighted  in  all  kinds  of  Nature,  peaceful 
or  wild,  but  her  especial  pleasure  was  in  those  phases  of 
Nature  ignored  by  the  classicists.  Mountains,  the  ocean,  the 
phenomena  of  the  sky,  and  deep  forests,  are  chiefly  dwelt 
upon  in  her  descriptions.  Her  love  of  the  ocean  is  really  a 
new  element  in  the  general  attitude  toward  Nature.  Paint- 
ing, poetry,  and  fiction  had  up  to  this  time  put  little  stress  on 


220  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

the  ocean,  but  Mrs.  Radcliffe  in  frequent  passages  shows 
that  her  own  feehng  was  that  of  AdeHne,  of  whom  she  says, 
"Of  all  the  grand  objects  which  nature  had  exhibited  the 
ocean  suppHed  her  with  the  most  sublime  admiration.  She 
loved  to  wander  alone  by  its  shore."  It  is,  however,  in  the 
representation  of  forest  scenes  that  Mrs.  Radcliffe's  most 
efifective  work  is  done.  The  wild  and  terrifying  influence  of 
the  dark  woods  that  cover  the  Apennines,  all  the  dim  and 
shadowy  loveliness,  all  the  mystery  and  suggestiveness  of  the 
romantic  forest  about  the  ruined  abbey,  reappear  in  her 
descriptions.  Her  feeling  toward  mountains  is  one  of  almost 
extravagant  delight  in  their  vastness,  their  wildness,  their 
remoteness,  and  inaccessibility.  She  is  deeply  sensitive  to 
all  the  "goings  on"  in  the  sky.  She  catches  with  accuracy 
the  most  ethereal,  delicate,  evanescent  effects.  It  is  espe- 
cially mystery  and  remoteness  that  she  loves,  hence  night, 
moonlight,  and  stars  attract  her.  Closely  connected  with  her 
pleasure  in  the  sky  is  her  artistic  openness  to  all  aerial  trans- 
formations. In  her  wide  views  over  land  and  sea,  in  vistas 
caught  through  forest  glades,  in  pictures  of  twilight  or  dawn, 
of  sunrise  or  sunset,  she  seldom  fails  to  note  the  quick 
shiftings  of  color  and  form,  the  interplay  of  light  and  shade, 
the  dimness,  the  transparency,  the  luminosity,  resulting  from 
atmospheric  changes. 

She  looked  upon  Nature  not  only,  as  she  said  of  one  of  her 
own  characters,  "with  the  eye  of  an  artist,  but  with  the 
raptures  of  a  poet."  The  effect  of  Nature  on  man  in  soothing 
his  grief,  modifying  his  passions,  and  elevating  his  character 
is  everywhere  insisted  upon.  As  Adeline's  eyes  "wandered 
through  the  romantic  glades  that  opened  into  the  forest  her 
heart  was  gladdened."  Through  the  melancholy  boughs  the 
evening  twilight,  which  still  colored  the  air,  "diffused  a 
solemnity   that   vibrated   in   thrilling   sensations   upon   the 


FICTION  221 

hearts    of    the    travellers The    tranquillity    of    the 

scene,  which  autumn  had  touched  with  her  sweetest  tints, 
softened  her  mind  to  a  tender  kind  of  melancholy." 

The  Alps  "filled  her  mind  with  subhme  emotions."  The 
solitary  grandeur  of  these  scenes  both  "assisted  and  soothed 
the  melancholy  of  her  heart."  The  stillness  and  total  seclu- 
sion of  the  scene,  the  stupendous  mountains,  the  gloomy 
grandeur  of  the  woods,  "diffuse  a  sacred  enthusiasm  over 
the  mind  and  awaken  sensations  truly  sublime."  Such  a 
scene  "fills  the  soul  with  emotions  of  indescribable  awe,  and 
seems  to  Hft  it  to  a  nobler  nature."  "It  was  in  the  tranquil 
observation  of  beautiful  nature"  that  Clara's  mind  recovered 
its  tone.  The  moonlight  on  the  sea  seemed  to  "diffuse 
peace."  Twilight  sometimes  "inspires  the  mind  with  pen- 
sive tenderness,"  sometimes  "  exalts  it  to  sublime  meditations." 
The  Alps  inspire  reflections  that  "soften  and  elevate  the 
heart  and  fill  it  with  the  certainty  of  a  present  God."  Such 
expressions  were  repeated  with  an  insistence  that  becomes 
monotonous.  There  is,  indeed,  an  element  of  sameness  in  all 
the  descriptions,  an  effect  the  more  tiresome  because  they  are 
so  numerous.  So  large  a  descriptive  element  would  hardly 
be  admitted  in  a  novel  today  unless  justified  by  some  remark- 
able power  of  word-painting.  Mrs.  Radcliffe's  descriptions 
would  doubtless  invite  the  modern  reader,  at  least  after  a 
steady  progress  through  four  or  five  volumes,  to  do  some 
judicious  skipping.  But  thought  of  as  in  her  own  day,  Mrs. 
Radcliffe  must  always  rank  as  a  discoverer,  so  new  and  fresh 
was  this  element  she  brought  into  fiction.  As  is  usual  with 
discoverers  she  overworked  her  idea.  She  was  not  a  great 
genius.  She  was  often  weakly  sentimental.  But  she  had 
a  genuine  and  most  ardent  love  of  Nature,  and,  when  at  her 
best,  had  exceptional  descriptive  power.  Her  fame  and  her 
influence  on  succeeding  literature  rest  on  these  characteristics. 


222  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

In  ^'Fiction,"  as  in  ''Travels"  and  'Toetry,"  there  is  the 
transfer  of  interest  from  what  man  does  or  is,  to  the 
powers  of  untrammeled  Nature.  The  new  spirit  here,  as  in 
"Travels,"  is  late  in  finding  adequate  expression.  We  can 
hardly  put  any  real  beginnings  of  it  earlier  than  "John 
Buncle"  (1756-66).  Even  after  that,  development  is  spas- 
modic and  slpw.  In  most  of  the  novels  and  romances  we 
find  the  romantic  impulse  to  see  strange  lands,  but  men  and 
manners  absorb  the  attention  of  the  travelers.  Mrs.  Rad- 
cliffe's  fugitives  in  "The  Romance  of  the  Forest,"  the  travel- 
ers in  "The  Mysteries  of  Udolpho,"  and  Mrs.  Brooke's  soldier 
in  "Emily  Montague"  are  the  first  to  make  much  of  the 
scenery  through  which  they  pass. 

In  general  w^e  may  say  that  novels  had  little  to  do  with 
Nature,  and  romances  much.  This  may  account  for  the  lack 
of  reality  in  the  descriptions.  There  is  nothing  in  any  work 
of  fiqtion  at  all  correspondent  to  the  temperate,  truthful, 
clear-cut  work  of  Cowper  and  Burns.  There  is  practically 
nothing  of  the  bald  realism  of  John  Scott,  whose  poetry  was 
written  rather  in  the  scientific  temper  with  which  most  travels 
were  undertaken.  Nor,  on  the  other  hand,  is  there  anything 
of  the  visionary,  mystical  power  of  Blake.  The  best  use  of 
Nature  in  fiction  is  more  akin  to  the  emotionahsm  of  Beattie. 
Except  for  Mrs.  Radcliffe,  and  she  came  late  in  the  century, 
fiction  contributed  less  to  bring  about  the  new  attitude  toward 
Nature  than  did  any  other  form  of  art  expression. 


CHAPTER  IV 

TRAVELS 

It  is  impossible  to  do  more  here  than  merely  to  sketch  the 
possibilities  in  a  "History  of  the  Tour  and  the  Guide  Book," 
because  the  mass  of  material  to  be  gone  over  is  so  great. 
Pinkerton's  ''Catalogue  of  Voyages  and  Travels,"  published 
in  1814,  gives  over  4,500  books.  It  is  so  elaborately  tabulated 
that  it  is  not  easy  to  use,  but  it  is  possible  to  cull  from  its 
voluminous  pages  a  fairly  compendious  list  of  such  travels 
as  were  published  in  England  in  the  eighteenth  century.  In 
this  list  there  are  about  360  books.  Of  these  360  books  all 
but  84  are  travels  outside  of  Great  Britain  and  Ireland. 
Their  distribution  through  the  century  indicates  a  steady 
growth  of  interest  in  foreign  lands,  for  nearly  half  of  the 
English  accounts  of  travels  in  other  countries  belong  in  the 
last  quarter  of  the  century.  But  these  foreign  tours,  how- 
ever interesting  in  themselves,  are  outside  the  present  field  of 
inquiry.  They  were  undertaken  usually  with  some  definite 
purpose.  Antiquities,  curiosities,  minerals;  laws,  manners, 
customs;  utilitarian  possibilities— these  were  the  leading 
subjects  of  inquiry.  In  the  titles  such  phrases  as,  "relating 
chiefly  to  the  history,  antiquities,  and  geography;"  "remarks 
on  Characters  and  Manners;"  "chiefly  relative  to  the  knowl- 
edge of  mankind,  industry,  literature,  and  natural  history;" 
"with  an  account  of  the  most  memorable  sieges;"  "contain- 
ing a  great  variety  of  geographical,  topographical  and 
political  observations;"  "containing  specially  a  description 
of  fortified  towns;"  "containing  a  Picture  of  the  Country,  the 
Manners,  and  the  Actual  Government,"  are  of  constant 
recurrence  and  serve  to  mark  out  the  general  scope  of  these 

223 


224  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

works.  There  are,  to  be  sure,  in  these  books,  many  scattered 
descriptions  of  the  natural  scenes  visited.  This  is  especially 
true  of  the  "Travels"  in  the  last  quarter  of  the  century.  But 
to  study  these  descriptions,  even  superficially,  would  be  too 
wide  a  work  for  the  present  limits.  Furthermore,  the 
accounts  of  the  tours  made  in  the  United  Kingdom  will 
doubtless  reveal  the  characteristics  of  the  observations  made 
in  foreign  lands. 

One  of  the  early  books  of  English  travel  in  the  eighteenth 
century  is  Mr.  Martin's  ''Description  of  the  Western  Islands 
of  Scotland"  (1703).  It  is  this  book  that  stirred  Dr.  John- 
son to  make  his  visit  to  the  Hebrides,  and  it  is  from  this  that 
Mallet  drew  the  details  for  his  "Amyntor  and  Theodora." 
In  the  Preface  Martin  says : 

Perhaps  it  is  peculiar  to  those  isles,  that  they  have  never  been 
described  till  now  by  any  man  that  was  a  native  of  the  country',  or  had 

traveled  them Descriptions  of  countries,  without  the  natural 

histories  of  them,  are  now  justly  reckoned  to  be  defective.  This  I  had 
a  particular  regard  to  in  the  following  descriptions,  and  have  ever)^where 
taken  notice  of  the  nature  of  the  climate  and  soil,  and  of  the  remarkable 
cures  performed  by  the  natives  merely  by  the  use  of  simples. 

This  preliminary  promise  of  first-hand  observation, 
especially  so  far  as  Nature  is  concerned,  is  hardly  carried  out. 
The  book  is  a  credulous,  entertaining,  unsifted  narrative  of 
whatever  marvels  came  to  his  ears.  His  interest  rested 
chiefly  on  strange  cures  made  by  the  use  of  "simples."  The 
''Description"  has  the  negative  importance  of  entirely  ignoring 
Nature.  In  its  120  pages  there  is  not  a  word  or  phrase  in 
recognition  of  the  wild  and  beautiful  scenery  in  these  islands. 

The  same  distinction  holds  of  Brand's  "Brief  Description 
of  Orkney,  Zetland,  Pightland-Firth,  and  Caithness"  (1701). 
Brand  was  one  of  a  commission  sent  by  the  General  Assembly 
to  inquire  into  religious  matters  in  the  northern  islands,  so  it 


TRAVELS  225 

is  not  strange  that  he  bestows  much  attention  on  heathenish 
and  popish  rites,  charms,  and  superstitions.  He  is  also 
much  interested  in  the  prevaihng  diseases  and  the  means  of 
cure  employed  by  the  natives,  and  he  says  much  of  their 
customs,  manners,  and  personal  appearance.  He  describes 
the  crops,  the  cHmate,  the  favorite  articles  of  food,  but  his 
eyes  are  holden  to  the  charms  of  scenery. 

In  171 5  appeared  Alexander  Pennecuik's  ''Description  of 
Tweeddale."  He  was  a  physician  and  for  thirty  years  his 
employment  had  obliged  him  to  know  and  observe  every 
comer  of  Tweeddale.  He  found  great  pleasure  in  "  herbaliz- 
ing  shady  groves  and  mountains,"  and  the  chief  value  of  his 
work  is  accordingly  in  its  numerous  botanical  observations. 
Not  a  stray  sentence  indicates  pleasure  in  the  beauty  of  the 
Lowland  mountains. 

Except  for  the  work  of  Brand,  Martin,  and  Pennecuik, 
the  first  half  of  the  century  shows  but  a  meager  list  of  travels. 
Besides  eight  "Tours"  pubHshed  anonymously,  Pinkerton 
records  only  Gordon's  'Ttinerarium  Septentrionale  (in  Scot- 
land and  Northern  England)  in  1726,  and  Macky's  ''Journey 
through  England"  in  1732.  In  1762  appeared  Hamilton's 
"Letters  from  Antrim,"  the  chief  subject  of  which  was 
announced  to  be  "the  Natural  History  of  the  Basaltes." 
Mr.  Hamilton  spoke  occasionally  of  the  beautiful  and  pic- 
turesque appearance  of  the  Irish  coast,  but  he  professed  him- 
self an  advocate  of  Mr.  Locke's  system  of  a  dictionary  of 
pictures  in  preference  to  a  dictionary  of  tedious  descriptions. 
From  1764  to  1769  Mr.  Bushe  added  his  contribution  to  Irish 
"Travels,"  the  objects  dwelt  upon  in  his  "Hibernia  Curiosa" 
being  "Manners,  observations  on  the  state  of  Trade  and 
Agriculture,  and  Natural  Curiosities." 

Much  of  the  work  in  "Travels"  or  "Tours"  in  the 
eighteenth  century  is  thrown  into  the  form  of  familiar  letters. 


226  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

By  far  the  most  important  of  these  tourists'  letters  from  the 
present  point  of  view  is  Dr.  Brown's  description  of  Keswick  in 
a  letter  to  Lyttleton.  This  letter  was  printed  at  Newcastle  in 
1767  but  it  was  written  at  least  a  year  earlier  for  Dr.  Brown 
died  in  1766.  Even  this  date  puts  it  with  ''John  Buncle"  and 
Dr.  Dalton's  "Descriptive  Poem"  as  being  one  of  the  three 
earliest  descriptions  of  the  Lake  Region.^  Since  it  is  so  little 
known  some  unusually  long  extracts  from  it  may  be  of  value: 

But  at  Keswick,  you  will  on  one  side  of  the  lake,  see  a  rich  and 

beautiful  landskip  of  cultivated  fields On  the  opposite  shore 

you  will  find  rocks  and  cliflfs  of  stupendous  height,  hanging  broken  over 
the  lake  in  horrible  grandeur,  some  of  them  a  thousand  feet  high;  the 
woods  climb  up  their  steep  and  shaggy  sides,  where  mortal  foot  never 
yet  approached:  on  these  dreadful  heights  the  eagles  build  their  nests; 
a  variety  of  waterfalls  are  seen  pouring  from  their  summits  and  tumbling 
from  rock  to  rock,  in  rude  and  terrible  magnificence,  while  on  all  sides 
of  this  immense  amphitheatre  the  lofty  mountains  rise  around,  piercing 
the  clouds  in  shapes  as  spiry  and  fantastic  as  the  very  rocks  of  Dovedale. 
To  this  I  must  add  the  frequent  and  bold  projection  of  the  cliffs  into 
the  lake,  forming  noble  bays  and  promontories;  in  other  parts  they 
finely  retire  from  it  and  often  open  in  abrupt  chasms  or  clefts,  through 
which  at  hand  you  see  rich  and  uncultivated  vales,  and,  beyond  these, 
at  various  distance,  mountain  rising  over  mountain,  among  which,  new 
prospects  present  themselves  in  mist,  till  the  eye  is  lost  in  an  agreeable 
perplexity. 

Where  active  fancy  travels  beyond  sense 

And  pictures  things  unseen. 

I  I  have  been  unable  to  find  the  exact  date  of  this  letter,  but  in  all 
probability  it  antedates  "The  Life  of  John  Buncle"  and  the  "Descriptive 
Poem"  by  some  years.  It  was  probably  before  1760,  because  at  that  time 
occurred  the  quarrel  between  Lyttleton  and  Brown.  It  seems  also  prob- 
able that  it  was  before  1756,  because  at  that  time  Dr.  Brown  took  the  living 
at  Great  Horkesley,  near  Colchester.  The  most  natural  period  for  the 
Letter  is  between  1748  and  1754,  for  at  some  time  during  that  period,  and 
apparently  during  the  early  part  of  it,  Dr.  Brown  held  the  living  of  Morland, 
Westmoreland.  (See  "Brown,"  "Osbaldiston,"  "Lyttleton"  in  "Nat. 
Diet,  of  Biog."  and  memoir  of  Brown  in  "British  Poets.") 


TR.WELS  227 

Were  I  to  analyze  the  two  places  in  their  constituent  principles,  I  should 
tell  you  that  the  full  perfection  of  Keswick  consists  of  three  circum- 
stances, beauty,  horror,  and  immensity  united 

So  much  for  what  I  would  call  the  permanent  beauties  of  this  aston- 
ishing scene.     Were  I  not  afraid  of  being  tiresome  I  could  now  dwell  as 

long  on  its  varying  or  accidental  beauties Sometimes  a  serene 

air  and  clear  sky  disclose  the  tops  of  the  highest  hills;  at  others,  you 
see  the  clouds  involving  their  summits,  resting  on  their  sides  or  descend- 
ing to  their  base,  and  rolling  among  the  valleys,  as  in  a  vast  furnace; 
when  the  winds  are  high,  they  roar  among  the  cliffs  and  caverns  hke 
peals  of  thunder;  then  too  the  clouds  are  seen  in  vast  bodies  sweeping 
along  the  hills  in  gloomy  greatness,  while  the  lake  joins  the  tumult  and 
tosses  like  a  sea;  but  in  calm  weather  the  whole  scene  becomes  new; 
the  lake  is  a  perfect  mirror  and  the  landscape  in  all  its  beauty,  islands, 
fields,  woods,  rocks  and  mountains,  are  seen  inverted  and  floating  on  its 
surface.  I  will  now  carry  you  to  the  top  of  a  cliff,  where,  if  you  dare 
approach  the  ridge,  a  new  scene  of  astonishment  presents  itself;  where 
the  valley,  lake  and  islands  are  seen  lying  at  your  feet;  where  this 
expanse  of  water  appears  diminished  to  a  little  pool  amidst  the  vast  and 
immeasurable  objects  that  surround  it;  for  here  the  summits  of  more 
distant  hills  appear  beyond  those  you  have  already  seen;  and  rising 
behind  each  other  in  successive  ranges  and  azure  groups  of  craggy  and 
broken  steeps,  form  an  immense  and  awful  picture,  which  can  only  be 
expressed  by  the  image  of  a  tempestuous  sea  of  mountains.  Let  me  now 
conduct  you  down  again  to  the  valley  and  conclude  with  one  circum- 
stance more,  which  is,  that  a  walk  by  still  moonhght  (at  which  time  the 
distant  waterfalls  are  heard  in  all  their  variety  of  sound)  among  these 
enchanting  dales,  opens  such  scenes  of  deHcate  beaut}',  repose  and  solem- 
nit}''  as  exceed  all  description. 

Mr.  Gilpin  knew  Dr.  Brown's  ''Letter,"  for  in  his  Cumber- 
land ''Tour"  (1772)  he  justified  his  own  preference  for  Keswick 
by  saying  that  this  region  had  also  been  singled  out  by  Dr. 
Brown,"  who  was  a  man  of  taste  and  had  seen  every  part  of  this 
country."  Mr.  Hutchinson  quoted  the  whole  of  the  "Letter." 
Mr.  West  went  to  Keswick  with  the  "Letter"  in  hand,  trem- 
bling with  eagerness  to  experience  the  joys  it  depicted.  Cer- 
tainly this  "Letter  from  Keswick"  in  the  delight  with  which 


228  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

it  dwells  on  the  wild  and  terrible  elements  of  Nature,  in  its 
detailed  observation,  in  its  artistic  appreciation  of  the  acci- 
dental effects  of  atmospheric  conditions,  and  in  its  sensitive- 
ness to  the  spirit  of  the  place,  comes  very  close  to  the  modern 
enthusiasm  for  mountains.  The  details  are  sometimes  exag- 
gerated and  the  author's  rapture  may  seem  over-stated,  but 
the  genuineness  of  his  feehng,  and  the  reality  of  his  knowledge 
of  mountains  and  lake,  must  remain  unquestioned.  The 
''Letter"  is  one  of  the  first,  and  the  most  considerable  of  the 
early  contributions  to  the  literature  of  the  Lakes. 

The  great  period  of  English  travels  began  in  1767  with 
Arthur  Young's  ''Six  Weeks'  Tour  in  the  Southern  Counties 
of  England  and  Wales."  In  1768  (June  to  November)  he 
wrote  his  "Six  Months'  Tour  in  the  North  of  England."  His 
next  important  work,  "A  Farmer's  Tour  through  the  East  of 
England,"  was  pubhshed  in  1771.  His  "Tour  in  Ireland" 
appeared  in  1779.  The  professed  design  of  these  sketches 
was  husbandry.  Agriculture,  industry,  population,  farming 
experiments,  prices,  laws — these  were  the  topics  on  which  he 
wished  to  inform  himself  and  others.  He  had  apparently,  in 
his  original  plan,  no  thought  of  describing  the  country  through 
w^hich  he  passed.  There  is  in  this  respect  a  significant 
difference  between  the  books  of  1767-68  and  that  of  1779. 
In  the  first  two  he  kept  the  text  rigorously  free  from  all 
weakening  admixture  of  landscape,  the  enthusiastic  descrip- 
tions of  scenery  appearing  as  footnotes.  In  the  last,  the 
descriptions  are  boldly  incorporated  into  the  text,  and 
form,  what  is  more,  a  surprisingly  large  proportion  of  it. 
In  1767-68  he  described  such  places  as  he  happened  to 
pass  near.  In  1779  he  followed  up  one  river  and  down 
another  professedly  in  search  of  "  wild  and  romantic  land- 
scapes." In  general  character,  however,  the  descriptions 
do  not  greatly   vary   in   the   three  books.     The   most  nu- 


TRAVELS  229 

merous  descriptions  are  of  gentlemen's  estates,  perhaps  in 
courteous  repayment  of  hospitalities  received.  These  ac- 
counts are  always  detailed  and  often  tedious.  Young 
apparently  went  about  with  the  polite  owner,  sat  in  his  seats, 
looked  down  his  vistas,  observed  his  temples,  and  took  notes 
thereon.  Our  chief  interest  in  these  passages  is  the  testi- 
mony they  bear  to  Young's  own  preference  for  estates  where 
art  had  done  the  least  and  Nature  most.  "The  owner  has 
had  the  good  judgment  merely  to  assist  nature,"  or  "merely 
to  render  natural  beauties  accessible"  are  characteristic 
words  of  praise.  The  best  descriptions  are  not,  however, 
of  estates,  but  of  grand  natural  scenes.  It  is  views  from 
Persfeld  on  the  Why  (Wye);^  the  wild  country  along  the 
Tees;  the  Enghsh  Lakes;  the  waterfalls  and  wild  glens  near 
Powerscourt;  the  mountains  and  lakes  of  Killarney,  that 
really  stir  him.  Such  spots  he  describes  with  an  enthusiasm 
that  never  flags.  He  is  tediously  minute.  He  cannot  let  a 
detail  escape.  And  through  all  there  is  an  eager,  overflowing 
delight,  a  rapturous  pleasure  in  wild  scenery  such  as  we  find 
in  no  traveler  before  Young  except  Brown.  He  broods  over 
a  fine  landscape.  He  is  unwilling  to  lose  one  of  its  possible 
charms.  At  Derwentwater  he  rows  all  around  the  lake, 
around  each  island,  stops  to  hunt  up  unseen  waterfalls,  climbs 
all  crags  that  promise  fine  views.  He  is  indefatigable.  No 
peril  stops  him.  He  wonders  why  the  people  of  Keswick 
do  not  at  once  cut  paths  to  the  fine  views  so  that  no  one  need 
miss  them.  As  he  climbs  Skiddaw  he  laughs  with  scorn  as 
he  mentally  compares  "the  effects  of  a  Louis'  magnificence 
to  the  play  of  nature  in  the  vale  of  Keswick."  His  exclama- 
tion, "How  trifling  the  labors  of  art  to  the  mere  sport  of 
nature!"    certainly    marks    a    rebound    from    conventional 

I  Young  explains  that  he  cannot  find  anyone  to  spell  the  names  for 
him  so  he  must  spell  them  as  they  are  pronounced. 


230  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

Standards.  The  view  of  ''Winandermere"  from  the  heights 
on  the  eastern  shore  is,  he  thinks,  "  the  most  superlative  view 
that  nature  can  exhibit"  or,  if  not,  she  is  "more  fertile  in 
beauties"  than  his  imagination  can  conceive.  ''To  ride  the 
eighteen  miles  from  Bernard  Castle  to  the  falls  of  the  Tees 
one  could  well  afford,"  he  says,  "a  journey  of  a  thousand 
miles."  He  rides  out  to  Haws  Water.  He  makes  a  close 
study  of  Hulls  Water.  The  whole  region  holds  him  with  a 
fascination  nowhere  repeated  till  he  finds  himself,  ten  years 
later,  among  similar  wild  scenes  in  Ireland.  Here,  almost 
forgetting  that  he  is  a  scientific  farmer  in  search  of  informa- 
tion, he  wanders  along  the  picturesque  banks  of  the  Liffey, 
the  Boyne,  the  Nore,  the  Boyle,  visits  Lake  Ennel,  Loch 
Eame,  the  lakes  of  Killamey,  and  writes  descriptions  in  the 
manner  of  the  most  voluminous  and  ardent  of  modern  sight- 
seers. Young's  significance  in  this  study  rests  not  so  much 
on  any  artistic  excellence  of  expression  as  on  his  wide  observa- 
tion, his  personal  enthusiasm  for  Nature,  and  his  early  date. 

The  next  traveler  of  importance  was  Thomas  Gray.  The 
openness  of  Gray's  mind  to  pleasure  from  the  external  world 
is  hardly  at  all  indicated  in  his  poetry.  In  his  prose  we  find 
it  especially  in  the  ''Journal  in  the  Lakes"  in  1769.  Thirty 
years  before  this,  his  "Journal  in  France"  had  given  some  hint 
of  his  taste  for  wild  scenery,  but  at  that  time,  though  he  ex- 
pressed great  pleasure  in  the  "magnificent  rudeness"  of  the 
Alps,  he  had  not  entirely  broken  away  from  the  current  con- 
ceptions and  the  current  phraseology,  as  is  shown  by  the 
sentence:  "You  here  meet  with  all  the  beauties  so  savage 
and  horrid  a  place  can  present  you  with." 

Gray's  published  letters  extend  from  1739  to  1770.  Scat- 
tered through  these  are  occasional  passages  indicative  of  a 
genuine  love  of  Nature.  In  the  midst  of  a  humorous  letter 
to  Walpole  (Sept.  1737)  he  speaks  of  "venerable  beeches 


TRAVELS  231 

....  always  dreaming  out  their  old  stories  to  the  winds." 
After  he  came  back  from  Scotland,  in  1765,  he  wrote  to  Mr. 
Mason : 

I  am  returned  from  Scotland  charmed  with  my  expedition;  it  is  of 
the  Highlands  I  speak;  the  Lowlands  are  worth  seeing  once,  but  the 
mountains  are  ecstatic,  and  ought  to  be  visited  in  pilgrimage  once  a 
year.  None  but  these  monstrous  creatures  of  God  know  how  to  join  so 
much  beauty  with  so  much  horror.  A  fig  for  your  poets,  painters, 
gardeners,  and  clerg}'men,  that  have  not  been  up  among  them;  their 
imagination  can  be  made  up  of  nothing  but  bowling-greens,  flowering 
shrubs,  horse-ponds.  Fleet  ditches,  shell-grottoes,  and  Chinese  rails. 

So  early  as  1739  he  expressed  his  dislike  of  formal  gardens 

in  his  sarcastic  description  of  the  grounds  at  Versailles.    The 

same  feeling  of  irritation  at  the  preponderance  of  art  over 

Nature  recurs  in  his  description  of  Warwick  in  1754.     That 

even  the  most  natural  garden  did  not  satisfy  Gray  as  did  wild 

Nature  we  see  from  Mason's  lines  written  just  after  the  death 

of  Gray.     He  evidently  had  not  approved  of  "The  Garden" 

as  a  subject  for  a  poem  and  Mason  represents  him  as  saying: 

"Why  waste  thy  numbers  on  a  trivial  art. 
That  ill  can  mimic  e'en  the  humblest  charms 
Of  all-majestic  Nature  ?"     At  the  words 
His  eye  would  glisten,  and  his  accents  glow 
With  all  the  poet's  frenzy.     ''Sovereign  Queen! 
Behold,  and  tremble,  while  thou  view'st  her  state 
Throned  on  the  heights  of  Skiddaw;   call  thy  art 
To  build  her  such  a  throne;  that  art  will  feel 
How  vain  her  best  pretensions.     Trace  her  march 
Amid  the  purple  crags  of  Borrowdale,"  etc. 

In  general,  however,  the  testimony  of  the  letters  is  to  a  scien- 
tific rather  than  a  poetic  love  of  Nature.  There  are  many 
exact  records  of  the  weather,  of  the  coming  crops,  of  the 
blossoming  of  flowers.  A  single  example  may  serve  as 
typical.  It  is  a  record  of  observations  made  at  Stoke  Pogis 
in  July,  1754. 


232  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

Barley  was  in  ear  on  the  first  day;  gray  and  white  peas  in  bloom. 
The  bean  flowers  were  going  oflF.  Duke-cherries  in  plenty  on  the  5th; 
hearts  were  also  ripe.  Green  melons  on  the  6th,  but  watry  and  not 
sweet.  Currants  began  to  ripen  on  the  8th,  and  red  gooseberries  had 
changed  color. 

And  so  on  with  nearly  a  hundred  more  of  the  tabulated 
natural  facts. 

Of  Gray  as  a  traveler  Sir  James  Mackintosh  is  quoted  by 
Mitford  as  saying:  "Gray  was  the  first  discoverer  of  the 
natural  beauties  in  England,  and  has  marked  out  the  course 
of  every  picturesque  journey  that  can  be  made  in  it." 

The  dogmatic  absoluteness  of  such  a  statement  is  its  own 
ruin.  We  have  already  seen  that  Gray  had  at  least  three 
predecessors,  Dalton,  Amory,  and  Brown,  in  his  recognition 
of  the  beauty  of  the  Lake  Region,  and  many  a  new  tour  was 
sought  out  by  later  lovers  of  the  picturesque.  But  Gray's 
"Journal  in  the  Lakes,"  though  not  first,  is  certainly  most  im- 
portant. Both  in  feeling  and  in  spontaneity  and  adequacy 
of  expression  it  shows  a  marked  advance  on  his  preceding 
work,  and  as  literature  it  is  distinctly  in  advance  of  what 
others  had  done. 

The  whole  of  this  famous  tour  occupied  but  three  weeks, 

'and  the  trip  in  the  Lakes  but  ten  days.     Gray  was  by  no 

means  so  unwearied  in  sight-seeing  as  Young.     He  was  "  not 

fond  of  dirt,"  and  he  was  fastidious  about  roads  and   inns. 

He  did  not  go  on  an  eager  search  for  views.     He  did  not 

climb  Skiddaw,  and  he  passed  by  Orrest-Head.     He  saw 

what  he  could  see  comfortably.     His  descriptions  are  quiet 

and  controlled.      They  have  none  of  the  "dizzy  raptures" 

of  Brown  and  Young.     There  is  no  straining  after  epithets, 

no  struggle  to  find  expression  adequate  to  the  emotion.     The 

following  brief  quotations  may  serve  to  indicate  his  style: 

The  shining  purity  of  the  lake,  just  ruffled  by  the  breeze,  enough  to 
show  it  is  ahve. 


TRAVELS  233 

The  lake  majestic  in  its  calmness. 

Little  shining  torrents  hurry  down  the  rocks. 

The  grass  was  covered  with  a  hoar  frost,  which  soon  melted,  and 
exhaled  in  a  thin  blueish  smoke. 

In  the  evening  walked  alone  down  to  the  lake  after  sunset  and 
saw  the  solemn  colouring  of  night  draw  on,  the  last  gleam  of  sunshine 
fading  away  on  the  hill-tops,  the  deep  serene  of  the  waters  and  the  long 
shadows  of  the  mountains  thrown  across  them. 

At  distance  heard  the  murmur  of  many  waterfalls  not  audible  in  the 
day-time.  Wished  for  the  moon,  but  she  was  dark  to  me  and  silent, 
hid  in  her  vacant  interlunar  cave. 

The  charm  of  Gray's  descriptions  lies  in  a  certain  bare 
perfection  of  phrase,  in  his  direct,  unadorned  statement  of 
beautiful  facts.  His  words  have  a  vital,  penetrating  quahty, 
while  his  sense  of  form,  his  artistic  reticence,  keep  his  enthusi- 
asm free  from  exclamatory  extravagances. 

Thomas  Pennant's  first  tour  in  Scotland  was  made  in 
1769.  The  notes  taken  on  this  tour  were  put  into  shape  and 
pubHshed  in  1771.  Dissatisfied  with  the  result,  he  went  again 
in  1772,  and  his  ''Second  Tour  in  Scotland  and  the  Hebrides" 
appeared  in  1776.  In  the  first  tour  his  professed  object  was 
the  study  of  zoology.  In  the  second  he  was  assisted  by  two 
friends,  one  trained  in  botany,  and  the  other  well  up  in 
Scotch  customs  and  legends.  But  Pennant's  interest  was  not 
confined  to  zoology  and  botany,  to  manners  and  customs. 
His  curiosity  was  omnivorous  and  insatiable.  Everything 
was  fish  that  came  to  his  net,  and  his  industry  in  note-taking 
was  prodigious.  The  two  journeys  occupied  six  months,  and 
the  record  of  what  he  saw  and  heard  filled  570  folio  pages. 

In  this  mass  of  observations  not  more  than  ten  pages,  all 
told,  have  anything  to  do  with  the  scenery  through  which  he 
passed.  Such  descriptive  passages  as  do  occur  are  usually 
of  torrents,  rapid,  rocky  rivers,  or  the  shores  of  lakes.  The 
best  of  these  are  of  the  banks  of  the  Nith,  the  falls  of  Cory- 


234  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

Lin  in  the  Clyde,  the  Cascades  at  Moness,  which  he  calls  ''an 

epitome  of  everything  that  can  be  admired  in  the  curiosity  of 

waterfalls,"  the  falls  and  streams  near  Loch  Maree,  Aysgarth 

Force  in  the  Ure,  the  little  lake  of  Barrisdale  on  the  Inverness 

coast,  Coniston,  and  Derwentwater.     He  prides  himself  on 

being  one  of  the  first  to  describe  Coniston. 

The  scenery  about  this  lake,  which  is  scarcely  mentioned,  is  ex- 
tremely noble.  The  east  and  west  sides  are  bounded  by  high  hills  often 
wooded;  but  in  general  composed  of  grey  rock,  and  coarse  vegetation; 
much  juniper  creeps  along  the  surface;  and  some  beautiful  hollies  are 
finely  intermixed.  At  the  northwestern  extremity  the  vast  mountains 
called  Coniston  fells  form  a  magnificent  mass.  In  the  midst  is  a  great 
bosom  retiring  inward,  which  affords  great  quantities  of  fine  slate. 

He  very  often  notes  wide  views,  and  he  has  an  unfailing 
interest  of  a  scientific,  botanical  sort  in  the  forests  through 
which  they  pass. 

He  never,  however,  notes  any  but  the  permanent  details 
of  a  scene.  There  is  not  a  hint  that  he  saw  the  varying, 
evanescent,  atmospheric  effects,  so  important  an  element  in 
the  beauty  and  sublimity  of  mountain  scenery.  He  does 
admit  that  the  "Highlands  like  other  beauties,  have  their 
good  and  bad  days,"  but  there  is  nothing  in  his  books  to 
show  that  he  knew  them  apart. 

On  the  whole  he  shows  a  preference  for  a  region  of  smooth, 
rich,  arable  land.  On  leaving  the  Highlands  his  comment 
is, 

The  country  continually  improves;  the  mountains  sink  gradually 
into  small  hills;  the  land  is  highly  cultivated,  well  planted,  and  well 
inhabited.  I  was  struck  with  rapture  at  a  sight  so  long  new  to  me. 
Nothing  can  equal  the  contrast  between  the  black,  barren,  dreary  glens 
of  the  morning  ride  and  the  soft  scenes  of  the  evening. 

He  dislikes  the  Borrowdale  end  of  Derwentwater  where 
"all  the  possible  variety  of  Alpine  scenery  is  exhibited,  with 
all  the  horror  of  precipice,  broken  crag,  or  overhanging  rock, 


TRAVELS  235 

or  insulated  pyramidal  hills."     He  prefers  the  outlook  toward 
Skiddaw. 

But  the  opposite  or  northern  view  is  in  all  respects  a  strong  and 
beautiful  contrast;  Skiddaw  shows  its  vast  base,  and  bounding  all  that 
part  of  this  vale,  rises  gently  to  a  height  that  sinks  the  neighboring  hills; 
opens  a  pleasing  front,  smooth  and  verdant,  smiling  over  the  country 
like  a  gentle,  generous  lord,  while  the  fells  of  Barrowdale  frown  upon  it 
like  a  hardened  tyrant.  Skiddaw  is  covered  with  grass  to  within  half  a 
mile  of  the  summit;   after  which  it  becomes  stony. 

So  far  as  Nature  is  concerned,  the  passages  cited  show 
Pennant  at  his  best.  His  descriptions  are  full,  clear,  pains- 
taking, but  unimaginative.  He  is  as  impersonal  and  impar- 
tial, as  conscientiously  exact,  in  taking  notes  on  a  landscape 
as  in  recording  the  annual  haul  of  fish  in  Scotch  lakes. 
Beautiful  scenes  were  to  him  an  object  of  intellectual  curiosity. 
They  made  no  artistic  or  emotional  appeal.  "The  visions 
of  the  hills  and  the  souls  of  lonely  places"  were  a  strain  upon 
him.  He  was  glad  to  come  forth  into  fertile  valleys  and 
pleasant  corn  lands. 

All  this  is  true,  and  Pennant  shows  much  less  of  the  new 
spirit  than  Brown,  Amory,  Young,  and  Gray.  But  his  work 
w^as  done  independently  of  theirs,  and  in  1769.  He  must 
have  been  in  the  Lake  District  a  month  before  Gray,  and  he 
penetrated  into  much  wilder  regions  of  Scotland  than  had 
before  been  described.  That  his  instinctive  shrinking  from 
wild  scenes  should  have  been  so  far  overcome  as  it  was,  that 
he  should  have  been  often  forced  into  admiration,  is  of  itself 
proof  of  the  strength  of  the  new  impulse. 

The  Rev.  William  Gilpin  made  many  tours  and  gave  full 
accounts  of  them,  but  the  accounts  were  not  published  till 
years  after  the  tours  were  made.  His  chief  travels  in  their 
order  are: 

(i)   Tour  in   Norfolk,   Cambridge,   Suffolk,   and   Essex 


236  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

(1769;  account  published  1809);  (2)  tour  along  the  river 
Wye  (1770;  published  1782);  (3)  tour  in  Cumberland  and 
Westmoreland  (1772;  published  1786);  (4)  tour  in  North 
Wales  (1773;  published  1809);  (5)  tour  in  Hampshire,  Sussex, 
and  Kent  (1774;  published  1804) ;  (6)  tour  in  the  Highlands 
of  Scotland  (1776;  published  1789);  (7)  tour  in  Western 
England  (before  1778;  published  1798). 

Mr.  Gilpin's  point  of  view  is  clearly  stated  in  the  Preface 
to  the  first  of  these  publications.  ''The  following  little  work 
proposes  a  new  object  of  pursuit:  that  of  examining  the 
face  of  a  country  by  the  rules  of  picturesque  beauty."  He 
hopes  that  no  one  will  consider  his  plan  unduly  light  and 
trivial  for  a  clergyman.  He  is  himself  convinced  that  to  study 
the  beauty  of  a  country  is  as  noble,  in  a  way  as  useful,  as  to 
study  its  agriculture. 

By  picturesque  beauty  Gilpin  always  means  beauty  that 
can  be  put  into  a  picture.  He  draws  pictures  of  mountains 
to  show  whether  they  have  or  have  not  a  good  sky-line.  Some 
are  too  regular,  some  are  grotesque,  some  look  deformed.  He 
seldom  dwells  long  on  wide  views  because  they  are  so  difficult 
to  make  interesting  in  a  picture.  The  grandeur  of  Penmaen- 
mawr  and  Snowdon  hardly  makes  up  to  him  for  their  lack  of 
picturesqueness.  Penmaenmawr  "has  no  variety  of  line,  but 
is  one  heavy  lumpish  form."  He  starts  up  Snowdon,  but 
finding  that  it  is  merely  "a  collection  of  mountains  formed 
on  the  old  gigantic  plan  of  heaping  mountain  on  mountain," 
he  does  not  go  to  the  top,  but  contents  himself  with  quoting 
Pennant's  description  of  the  view. 

Gilpin's  language  is  often  borrowed  from  the  art  of  paint- 
ing. He  calls  the  steep  banks  of  rivers  "side  screens;"  the 
changing  view  before  him  as  he  floats  down  the  river  is  a 
"  front  screen. "  He  is  always  talking  about  foregrounds  and 
backgrounds   and   perspective  and   composition.     He  says 


TRAVELS  '  237 

that  Nature  is  great  in  design,  an  admirable  colorist,  and 
that  she  harmonizes  tints  with  infinite  variety  and  beauty. 
But,  he  adds, 

she  is  seldom  so  correct  in  composition  as  to  produce  a  harmonious 
whole.  Either  the  foreground  or  the  background  is  disproportioned,  or 
some  awkward  line  runs  through  the  piece;  or  a  tree  is  ill  placed,  or  a 
bank  is  formal;  or  something  or  other  is  not  as  it  should  be. 

With  his  sense  of  form  Gilpin  has  also  an  unusual  sensi- 
tiveness to  color,  and  to  varieties  of  light  and  shade.  The 
following  description  of  a  sunset  is  typical : 

The  sun  was  now  descending  low,  and  cast  the  broad  shades  of  even- 
ing athwart  the  landscape,  while  his  beams,  gleaming  with  yellow  lustre 
through  the  valleys,  spread  over  the  inlightened  summits  of  the  moun- 
tains a  thousand  lovely  tints — in  sober  harmony  where  some  deep  recess 
was  faintly  shadowed — in  splendid  hue  where  jutting  knolls  or  promon- 
tories received  fuller  radiance  of  the  diverging  ray.  The  air  was  still. 
The  lake,  one  vast  expanse  of  crystal  mirror.  The  mountain  shadows, 
which  sometimes  give  the  water  a  deep,  black  hue  (in  many  circum- 
stances extremely  picturesque)  were  softened  here  into  a  mild  blue  tint 
which  swept  over  half  the  surface.  The  other  half  received  the  fair 
impression  of  every  radiant  form  that  glowed  around.  The  inverted 
landscape  was  touched  in  fainter  colours  than  the  real  one.  Yet  it  was 
more  than  laid  in.  It  was  almost  finished.  \Vhat  an  admirable  study 
for  the  pallet  is  such  a  scene  as  this ! 

"No  one  can  paint  a  country  properly,"  he  says,  "unless 
he  has  seen  it  in  various  hghts."  The  local  variations  caused 
by  the  weather,  the  time  of  day,  the  time  of  year,  "cannot  be 
too  much  attended  to  by  all  lovers  of  landscape."  "Every 
landscape  is  seen  best  under  some  peculiar  illumination."  He 
has  always  the  painter's  eye  for  fogs,  mist,  haze,  soft  coloring, 
atmosphere. 

Gilpin  studied  Nature  according  to  the  rules  of  art, 
because,  as  he  said,  these  rules  were  drawn  from  Nature. 
No  man  resented  more  quickly  than  he  the  transforming 


238  NATURE  IX  ENGLISH  POETRY 

hand  of  man  in  natural  scenes.  If  lands  must  be  turned  to 
agricultural  uses,  if  fields  must  be  marked  off,  he  only  wishes 
that  it  might  be  made  as  little  apparent  as  possible.  He 
hates  "a.  multipHcity  of  glaring  temples"  in  a  landscape. 
He  thinks  most  so-called  adornments  in  private  grounds 
are  mere  ''expensive  deformity,"  and  he  calls  regular  clipped 
hedges  "objects  of  deformity."  He  apologizes  for  his  severe 
strictures  on  several  estates  in  the  Cumberland  region  by  say- 
ing that  the  grand  natural  scenes  so  filled  his  thought  that  he 
could  not  restrain  his  contempt  for  mere  embellished,  artificial 
ones.  Such  passages  are  an  emphatic  indication  of  the 
revolution  in  taste  since  the  days  of  the  formal  garden. 
Here  is  a  characteristic  sentence  written  as  they  leave  the 
Lakes:  "Here  the  hills  grow  smooth  and  lumpish,  and 
the  country  at  every  step  loses  some  of  the  wild  strokes 
of  Nature  and  degenerates,  if  I  may  so  speak,  into  cultiva- 
tion." 

Not  infrequently  Gilpin  turns  from  the  painter's  study  of 
the  scene,  and  gives  something  of  its  poetical  quality.  In 
speaking  of  the  appeal  made  by  the  Lake  Country  to  the 
imagination  he  says,  "No  tame  country,  however  beautiful, 
however  adorned,  can  distend  the  mind  like  this  awful  and 
majestic  scenery."  Of  "Ulzwater"  on  a  perfectly  serene  day 
he  says,  "So  solemn  and  splendid  a  scene  raises  in  the  mind 
a  sort  of  enthusiastic  calm  which  spreads  a  mild  compla- 
cence over  the  breast,  a  tranquil  pause  of  mental  operations 
which  may  be  felt  but  not  described."  And  again  in  his 
''Essay  on  Picturesque  Travel," 

We  are  most  delighted  when  some  grand  scene,  though  perhaps  of 
incorrect  composition,  rising  before  the  eyes,  strikes  us  beyond  the  power 
of  thought — when  the  vox  jancihus  haeret  and  every  mental  operation  is 
suspended.  In  this  pause  of  intellect,  this  deliquum  of  the  soul,  an 
enthusiastic  sensation  of  pleasure  overspreads  it.  We  rather  feel  than 
survey  the  scene. 


TRAVELS  239 

These  last  passages  inevitably  recall  Wordsworth's  analysis 
of  his  own  emotions  before  a  beautiful  view  when 

Thought  was  not;  in  enjoyment  it  expired, 

or  the  better- known  lines  in  "Tintern  Abbey." 

Gilpin,  if  we  take  the  whole  extent  of  his  work,  represents 
the  new  spirit  more  fully  than  any  of  the  other  early  travelers. 
He  notes  the  permanent  and  the  evanescent.  He  observes 
color,  form,  and  motion.  The  technical  quality  of  his  de- 
scriptions does  not  seriously  interfere  with  the  impression 
they  give  of  pleasure  in  free,  wild  Nature,  and  he  again  and 
again  shows  himself  capable  of  an  imaginative  communion 
with  Nature. 

In  1770  appeared  "Letters  from  Snowdon"  by  Joseph  Cra- 
dock.  This  book  is  the  first  record  I  have  found  of  travels 
in  Wales  for  the  special  purpose  of  enjoying  the  scenery. 
Mr.  Cradock  says  that  he  had  long  wished  to  visit  "  The  Welsh 
Alps,  the  summit  of  Snowdon"  and  he  seems  to  find  the 
reality  even  more  attractive  than  his  imagination  had  pictured 
it.  The  beautiful  little  valleys  "  environed  by  mountains  that 
scale  the  heavens,"  and  "the  infinitely  extensive  and  varie- 
gated prospect"  from  the  top  of  Snowdon  enchant  him.  The 
travelers  are  caught  in  tempestuous  weather  but  Mr. 
Cradock  rejoices  in  the  war  of  the  elements  and  quotes 
Thomson's  description  of  a  thunderstorm  in  Carnarvon. 
He  particularly  recommends  the  valley  of  the  Dryryd  to 
painters  delighting  in  romantic  Nature  because  of  its  pic- 
turesque wooded  hills,  its  naked  mountains,  rocky  rivers, 
foaming  cataracts,  transparent  lakes,  and  ruined  castles. 
Gilpin's  journey  up  Snowdon  was  made  in  the  same  year  but 
even  his  account  hardly  shows  the  unforced,  uncritical 
enthusiasm  for  wild  Nature  evinced  by  Mr.  Cradock. 

In  1773,  Mr.  Hutchinson  and  his  brother,  an  accomplished 


240  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

draughtsman,  made  a  tour  through  the  Lakes.  In  1774, 
after  the  death  of  his  brother,  ■Mr.  Hutchinson  went  over  the 
ground  again  in  order  to  verify  his  brother's  incomplete 
sketches.  The  observations  made  in  these  two  tours  were 
pubhshed  under  the  title  **An  Excursion  to  the  Lakes  in  West- 
moreland and  Cumberland."  Hutchinson's  dislike  of  the  wild 
and  desolate  region  of  Stainmore  has  already  been  cited,  but 
that  quotation  alone  would  give  a  most  unfair  impression  of  the 
book  as  a  whole.  His  pleasure  in  Nature  is  great.  He  cares 
especially  for  artistic  effects  of  light  and  shade,  and  he  often 
spends  pages  on  the  changing  beauty  of  a  landscape  seen  at 
sunset,  or  sunrise,  or  after  a  storm.  A  single  passage  may 
stand  as  illustrative  of  many  similar  ones  in  the  book. 

At  the  foot  of  this  vast  range  of  hills  three  smaller  mounts,  of  an 
exact  conic  form,  running  parallel,  beautified  the  scene,  being  covered 
with  verdure  to  their  crowns;  the  nearest,  called  Dufton  Pike,  was 
shadowed  by  a  passing  cloud,  save  only  the  summit  of  its  cone,  which 
was  touched  by  a  beam  which  painted  it  with  gold;  the  second  pike  was 
all  enlightened  and  gave  its  verdure  to  the  prospect  as  if  mantled  with 
velvet;  the  third  stood  shadowed,  whilst  all  the  range  of  hills  behind 
were  struck  with  sunshine,  showing  their  cliffs,  caverns,  and  dells  in 
grotesque  variety  and  giving  the  three  pikes  a  picturesque  projection  on 
the  landscape. 

Mr.  Hutchinson  had  evidently  read  many  of  the  books 
treating  especially  of  the  beauty  of  Nature.  He  quotes  the 
whole  of  Dr.  Bro\Mi's  ''Letter"  and  much  of  Mr.  Dalton's 
"Poem."  He  also  quotes  freely  from  Thomson's  "Seasoas," 
Mason's  "Garden,"  and  Pennant's  account  of  Derwentwater. 
Some  of  his  most  effective  descriptions  are  of  the  road  from 
Keswick  to  Ambleside,  ''the  finest  ride  in  the  north  of  Eng- 
land;" of  the  cataract  near  Ambleside,  probably  Stock  Gill 
Force;  of  the  ascent  of  Skiddaw  and  of  a  thunderstorm  seen 
from  its  summit;  of  Derwentwater  from  various  points  of 
view,  and  of  a  moonlight  row  upon  the  lake.     They  are  too 


TRAVELS  241 

long  to  quote,  but  they  all  show  faithful  and  minute  observa- 
tion, artistic  appreciation  of  beauties  of  form  and  color,  and, 
occasionally,  a  lively  sense  of  the  deeper  significance  of  the 
places  visited. 

Five  or  six  years  after  Mr.  Hutchinson's  "Tour"  there 
appeared  an  important  "Guide  to  the  Lakes,"  by  Mr.  West. 
The  second  edition,  revised  and  annotated  by  Mr.  Cockin 
came  out  in  1779,  and  the  ninth  edition  in  1807.  A  special 
feature  of  West's  "Guide"  was  its  "Addenda"  under  which 
heading  he  published  all  the  best-known  descriptions  of  the 
Lakes.  The  chief  of  these  were  Dr.  Brown's  "Letter,"  portions 
of  Dr.  Dalton's  "Poem,"  the  whole  of  Gray's  "Journal," 
Mr.  Cumberland's  "  Ode  to  the  Sun,"  selections  from  Relph's 
"Cumberland  Pastorals,"  and  two  descriptions  of  tours  in 
search  of  noted  caves.  In  1807  were  added  Mrs.  Radchffe's 
"Ride  over  Skiddaw"  (1794)  and  the  Rev.  James  Plumptre's 
"Night  Piece  on  the  Banks  of  Windermere."  The  "Guide" 
itself  shows  much  careful  investigation,  is  written  in  a  clear, 
intelligible  fashion,  and  betrays  genuine  and  discriminating 
love  of  Nature. 

The  most  important  English  tours  were  made  between 
1768  and  1778.  Pennant,  Gray,  Young,  Gilpin,  and  Hutch- 
inson made  during  these  ten  years  sixteen  rather  extended 
journeys,  of  which  they  gave  full  accounts.  Besides  these  we 
have  Dr.  Johnson's  "A  Journey  to  the  Hebrides"  (1773;  pub- 
lished 1775),  Boswell's  "Journal  of  a  Tour  to  the  Hebrides" 
(1773;  pubhshed  1786),  and  Bray's  "Tour  into  Derbyshire" 
(1777).  In  Boswell's  "Journey"  there  is  not  the  slightest 
indication  of  any  interest  in  the  scenery  through  which  they 
passed,  and  the  general  impression  given  by  Boswell  is  that 
Johnson's  indifference  was  equal  to  his  own.  For  instance, 
Boswell  wonders  at  the  outset  if  a  man  who  has  known  "  the 
felicity  of  London  life"  can  fail  to  find  any  narrower  existence 


242  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

''insipid  or  irksome."  He  quotes  Dr.  Johnson  as  saying  at 
Portree  that  he  ''longed  to  be  again  in  civilized  life."  He 
records  his  famous  sayings,  "By  seeing  London  I  have  seen 
as  much  of  life  as  the  world  can  show,"  and  "Who  caji  like 
the  Highlands  ?"  This  is  not  quite  fair  to  Johnson,  because 
in  his  own  account  of  the  Scotch  tour  and  in  his  letters  there 
are  a  few  passages  that  indicate  close  observation,  and  even 
enjoyment,  of  the  wild  scenes  about  him.  The  finest  passage 
is  a  description  of  a  storm: 

The  night  came  on  while  we  had  yet  a  great  part  of  the  way  to  go, 
though  not  so  dark  but  that  we  could  discern  the  cataracts  which  poured 
down  the  hills  on  one  side,  and  fell  into  one  general  channel  that  ran 
with  great  violence  on  the  other.  The  wind  was  loud,  the  rain  was 
hea\7,  and  the  whistling  of  the  blast,  the  fall  of  the  shower,  the  rush  of 
the  cataracts,  and  the  roar  of  the  torrent,  made  a  nobler  chorus  of  the 
rough  music  of  Nature  than  it  had  ever  been  my  chance  to  hear  before. 

But  Johnson's  attitude  toward  the  external  world  was,  on 
the  whole,  the  typical  classical  one,  and  is  well  illustrated  by 
his  reply  to  Mr.  Thrale's  attempt  to  win  his  admiration  of  a 
fine  prospect.  "Never  heed  such  nonsense;  a  blade  of 
grass  is  always  a  blade  of  grass,  whether  in  one  country  or 
another.  Let  us,  if  we  do  talk,  talk  about  something;  men 
and  women  are  my  subjects  of  inquiry." 

Mr.  Bray's  "Tour"  has  a  full  map  and  is  written  some- 
what in  the  guide-book  style.  Industries,  architecture,  his- 
tory, family  chronicles,  anecdotes,  inscriptions,  fill  up  its  135 
closely  printed  folio  pages.  There  is  comparatively  little 
about  the  scenes  through  which  he  passed.  In  describing 
the  various  estates  which  he  visited  pages  are  given  to  house- 
furnishings  for  a  single  paragraph  on  the  grounds.  But  these 
seldom  go  unnoticed.  He  dislikes  the  formal  garden.  He 
objects  to  the  regular  cascades  at  Matlock.  He  thinks  that 
the  conceits  in  the  waterworks  at  Chatsworth  might  have  been 


TRAVELS  243 

deemed  wonderful  when  they  were  made,  "but  those  who 
have  contemplated  the  waterfalls  which  nature  exhibits  in 
this  country  ....  will  receive  little  pleasure  from  seeing 
a  temporary  stream  falling  down  a  flight  of  steps,  spouted 
out  of  the  mouths  of  dolphins  or  dragons,  or  squirted  from 
the  leaves  of  a  copper  tree."  The  most  extended  description 
is  of  the  gardens  at  Stowe,  which  he  praises  because,  though 
laid  out  in  the  formal  style,  their  regularity  has  been  broken 
up  and  disguised.  Mr.  Bray  also  shows  a  liking  for  wild  and 
romantic  scenery.  He  frequently  mentions  wide  views,  and 
condemns  Compton  Wyngate  because  it  has  no  prospect, 
of  which,  he  adds,  "our  ancestors  appear  to  have  scarce 
ever  thought."  The  spots  he  enjoyed  most  are  Matlock 
High  Tor,  and  wild  places  on  the  Dove  and  the  Derwent, 
Aysgarth  Force  in  the  Ure,  and  rocky  Gordale.  He  noted 
especially  waterfalls  and  rivers.  Of  the  Derwent  at  Matlock 
he  says: 

It  is  a  most  romantic  and  beautiful  ride.  The  river  is  sometimes 
hid  behind  trees,  sometimes  it  ghdes  smooth  and  calm,  sometimes  a 
distant  fall  is  heard;  here  it  tumbles  over  a  ledge  of  rocks  stretching 
quite  across,  there  it  rushes  over  rude  fragments,  torn  by  storms  from 
the  impending  masses.  Each  side,  but  particularly  the  farther  one,  is 
bordered  by  lofty  rocks,  generally  clothed  with  wood,  in  the  most 
picturesque  manner. 

Passages  such  as  this,  though  perhaps  not  very  effective, 
show  an  attention  arrested  by  the  beauties  of  Nature.  There 
is  a  closeness  of  detail  indicating  first-hand  observation,  and 
the  prevailing  tone  shows  that  Mr.  Bray  justly  claims  for 
himself  "a  taste  for  nature  in  her  genuine  simplicity." 

Of  the  ''Travels"  after  1778,  numerous  as  they  are,  few 
need  special  mention,  because  almost  no  really  new  elements 
appear  in  them.  A  few  new  tours  are  sketched  out,  as  to  the 
Isle  of  Wight  and  the  Isle  of  Man.     But  in  general  the  same 


244  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

old  ground  is  gone  over,  the  preference  still  being  accorded  to 
Scotland,  Wales,  and  the  English  Lakes.  In  1796,  but  three 
years  before  Wordsworth  went  to  Dove  Cottage,  there  ap- 
peared four  new  'Tours"  to  the  Lakes  by  Rudworth,  Walker, 
Houseman,  and  Hutchinson.  In  1794-95  there  were  five 
'Tours"  in  Wales.  Of  a  few  of  these  "Tours"  after  1778 
perhaps  some  mention  should  be  made. 

The  Rev.  Mr.  Shaw's  'Tour"  (1788)  in  the  west  of  England 
is  significant  for  two  reasons.  It  is  one  of  the  first  books  to 
make  literary  associations  prominent  in  the  description.  He 
says  that  Woodstock  is  classic  ground  because  Chaucer  lived 
there;  Horton  is  sacred  because  of  Milton;  Beaconsfield, 
because  of  Waller;  Windsor  Forest,  because  of  Pope;  and 
Stoke  Pogis,  because  of  "the  sublime  and  the  pathetic 
Gray."  The  second  point  of  significance  is  Mr.  Shaw's 
evident  irritation  at  the  apparently  overweening  attention 
to  mountains.  He  says  that  if  people  could  forget  Skiddaw 
and  Ben  Lomond  for  a  little  while  they  might  be  able  to  see 
the  rich  beauty  of  the  champaign  country  about  Malvern 
Hills.  Mr.  Shaw  goes  back  to  the  "crowds  and  bustle"  of 
London  with  great  regret  because,  he  says,  no  matter  what 
society  you  find  there,  nothing  can  make  up  for  the  pensive 
enjoyments  of  a  feeling  mind  in  a  picturesque  country. 

Hassd's  'Tour  of  the  Isle  of  Wight"  (1790)  is  in  the 
style  of  Gilpin's  work.  The  general  knowledge  of  the  Lake 
Country  and  the  general  admiration  of  it  is  shown  by  his 
comparisons.  A  certain  spot  has  "all  the  appearance  of  a 
Westmoreland  scene."  Certain  noble  hills  "rise  with  all  the 
majesty  of  the  Skiddaw  mountains."  Hassel's  purpose  is  a 
search  for  the  picturesque.  He  especially  notes  rich  effects 
of  color,  and  the  varying  lights  of  sunrise  and  sunset.  He 
sees  Nature  in  a  succession  of  pictures,  but  his  language  is 
free  from  the  technicalities  of  Gilpin. 


TRAVELS  245 

Robertson's  'Tour  in  the  Isle  of  Man"  (1794)  has  little 
effective  description,  but  it  is  noteworthy  as  one  of  the  first 
books  of  travel  to  be  infected  by  the  sentimental  melancholy 
of  the  romances.  His  Manxmen  ''recline  by  some  romantic 
stream"  in  the  true  pensive  spirit.  He  visits  churchyards 
and  solitary  places.  He  pores  over  the  mazy  stream,  he 
watches  the  rooks,  he  listens  to  the  sighing  evening  breeze, 
very  much  like  one  of  Mrs.  Brooke's  lovelorn  heroes.  Oc- 
casionally he  has  some  expressions  of  deeper  import,  as  when 
he  says  that  Nature  not  only  charms  the  eye  "but  purifies 
and  ennobles  the  soul."  "The  mind  is  filled  with  divine 
enthusiasm."  He  is,  however,  perhaps  adequately  char- 
acterized by  the  word  "romantic,"  which  he  uses  until  it 
becomes  almost  unbearable. 

Of  "Travels"  in  general  we  may  say  that  the  transfer  of 
emphasis  from  man  to  Nature  is  strongly  marked.  The 
love  of  Nature  as  shown  in  "Travels"  is  later  in  development 
than  it  is  in  poetry,  but  when  the  new  feeling  does  find  expres- 
sion it  sounds  no  uncertain  note,  and  by  the  end  of  the  century 
has  reached  a  statement  as  bold  and  unqualified  as  that  which 
is  found  in  the  poetry  itself. 


CHAPTER  V 
GARDENING 

When  Charles  II  returned  to  England  in  1660  he  brought 
with  him  a  knowledge  of  the  new  style  of  gardening  in  France, 
and  an  ambition  to  reform  English  taste  according  to  French 
models.  He  committed  the  care  of  the  royal  gardens  of 
Whitehall,  St.  James,  and  Hampton  Court  to  French  gar- 
deners, and  he  spent  money  lavishly  in  various  attempts  to 
naturalize  French  flowers,  fruits,  and  vines  in  English  soil. 
With  memories  of  the  glories  of  Versailles  he  summoned 
Le  Notre,  the  famous  designer  of  French  palatial  gardens,  and 
Grillet,  noted  for  his  skill  in  hydraulics,  to  plan  the  parks  of 
St.  James  and  Greenwich.^  It  is  not  certain  that  Le  Notre 
actually  came  to  England,  but  the  royal  parks  and  some  great 
estates  were  laid  out  according  to  the  dominant  ideas  of  the 
French  designer  if  not  under  his  direct  supervision.  The 
French  traditions  thus  established  were  carried  on  by  John 
Rose  who  was  sent  to  study  the  gardens  at  Versailles  and  who 
was  appointed  royal  gardener  in  England.  Rose's  pupil  and 
successor,  George  London,  in  about  1690  took  Henry  Wise 
as  partner  and  the  two  were  for  nearly  a  quarter  of  a  century 
the  recognized  authorities  on  gardens  in  England.  On  the 
accession  of  Queen  Anne,  Wise  became  royal  gardener,  and 
London  then  confined  himself  to  country  work.  He  is  said 
to  have  supervised  most  of  the  notable  English  estates,  riding 
sometimes  fifty  or  sixty  miles  a  day  in  the  course  of  his  busi- 
ness. 

London  and  Wise  not  only  designed  and  developed  gardens 

I  Cf.  L.  Charlanne,  "L'influence   frangaise   en   Arigleterre   au   XVII* 
siecle,"  p.  115. 

246 


GARDENING  247 

but  they  were  influential  writers  on  garden  topics.  Among 
their  best  works  were  ''The  Compleat  Gard'ner,"  1699,  and 
''The  Retir'd  Gardener,"  1706.  These  books,  though  they 
contained  much  new  and  original  material,  were  in  the  main 
translations  from  French  authors  and  contributed  to  the  pre- 
dominance of  French  influence.  Evelyn's  writings  also  did 
much  to  establish  French  canons  of  taste  in  England.  He 
had  seen  and  greatly  admired  the  work  of  Le  Notre  in  the 
gardens  of  the  Tuileries,  Fountainebleau,  and  St.  Germain, 
and  in  his  "Dairy"  he  recorded  fully  the  impression  made 
upon  him  by  the  grandeur,  beauty,  and  especially  by  the 
artificial  marvels  of  these  parks. 

The  French  style  was  not,  however,  allowed  all  the  honors. 
It  met  with  a  powerful  rival  in  the  Dutch  taste  that  came  in 
with  William  and  Mary  in  1688.  This  taste  gradually  pre- 
vailed over  the  French  so  that  even  London  and  Wise  were 
affected  by  the  new  ideas  from  Holland  and  Flanders.  Gar- 
dens laid  out  in  the  same  decade  were,  the  one  French,  the 
other  Dutch  in  tone,  or  French  and  Dutch  characteristics 
were  mingled  in  the  same  garden.  Melbourne  Hall,  Derby- 
shire, the  gardens  of  which  were  remodeled  and  enlarged  by 
Henry  Wise  between  1 704-11  is  cited  by  Blomfield  and 
Thomas  in  "The  Formal  Garden  in  England"  as  "a  very 
valuable  instance  of  a  garden  laid  out  when  the  French  in- 
fluence was  still  dominant,"  while  the  gardens  at  Levens  in 
Westmoreland,  laid  out  soon  after  1690,  and  remaining  almost 
unaltered  to  the  present  day,  are  referred  to  by  Miss  Amherst 
as  "a  most  perfect  example  of  the  Dutch  type  of  garden  of 
this  period.'"  But  whether  Dutch  or  French  in  type,  all 
the  great  gardens  from  1660  to  nearly  the  middle  of  the  eight- 
eenth century  come  under  the  general  designation  of  formal 
gardens. 

I  Alicia  Amherst,  "A  History  of  Gardening  in  England,"  p.  206. 


248  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

The  most  striking  features  of  the  Dutch  style  were  topiary 
work,  potted  plants  and  shrubs,  dwarf  trees,  and  water- works 
of  "quaint  forms  and  surprise  arrangements."  The  gardens 
of  Le  Notre  were  especially  marked  by  long,  broad,  straight 
avenues  radiating  from  a  goose-foot;  much  use  of  architec- 
ture in  the  way  of  temples,  long  and  massive  flights  of  steps, 
balustrades,  columns,  and  urns;  much  statuary;  fountains 
with  many  high  and  complicated  jets,  with  magnificent 
marble  basins,  and  with  elaborate  carving  in  representations 
of  men  and  animals;  many  hedges  both  high  and  low;  long 
and  broad  terraces;  and  parterres  laid  out  in  intricate  plant 
embroidery.^ 

Our  most  accurate  idea  of  the  plans  of  these  formal  gardens 
comes  from  such  books  as  ''Les  delices  de  la  Grande  Bretagne 
et  de  ITrlande,"  published  in  Leyden  in  1707;  "Britannia 
Illustrata"  by  Knyff  and  Kip,  1709;  ''Views  of  Kent"  by  Bade- 
slade,  1722;  and  other  early  county  histories.^     One  of  Kip's 

1  Few  of  these  details,  except  the  radiating  avenues  and  the  high  jets 
of  water  characteristic  of  Le  Notre's  gardens,  were  absolutely  new  after  1660. 
Topiary  work  was  of  Roman  origin.  "It  is  said  to  have  been  invented  by 
Matius,  a  friend  of  the  emperor  Augustus.  The  chief  gardener  was  known  as 
the  "topiarius"  and  it  was  his  none  too  easy  task  to  see  that  the  evergreens 
were  artistically  shorn"  (Nichols,  "English  Pleasure  Gardens,"  p.  39).  The 
cutting  of  trees  and  shrubs  into  quaint  forms  was  introduced  into  England 
in  the  early  Tudor  period  and  became  very  popular.  The  clipped  garden 
at  Heslington,  near  York,  is  said  to  date  from  about  1560.  In  1618  Lawson 
in  his  "A  New  Orchard  and  Garden"  wrote,  "  Your  Gardiner  can  frame  your 
lesser  wood  to  the  shape  of  men  armed  in  the  field,  ready  to  give  battell; 
or  swift-running  Grey  Hounds  to  chase  the  Deere,  or  hunt  the  Hare."  There 
was  also  early  protest  against  such  work.  Bacon  in  his  "  Essay  on  Gardens" 
said,  "I,  for  my  part,  do  not  like  images  cut  out  in  juniper  or  other  garden 
stuff;  they  be  for  children."  Of  figured  and  colored  knots  Bacon  said, 
"They  be  but  toys;  you  may  see  as  good  sights  many  times  in  tarts."  He 
also  objected  to  fantastic  fountains  where  the  water  spouted  forth  in  "feath- 
ers, drinking  glasses,  canopies^  and  the  like." 

2  In  the  Arts  and  Crafts  Museum  at  Hamburg  there  is  a  fine  and  per- 
haps unique  historical  collection  of  garden  prints,  a  collection  made  by 


3Hi- 


^^ 


GARDENING  249 

plans  of  Longleat  is  here  reproduced.  The  grounds  at  Lon- 
gleat  were  laid  out  between  1682  and  1690  under  the  super- 
vision of  London.'  Though  of  exceptional  magnificence,  their 
characteristic  features  as  shown  in  the  plan  are  fairly  typical 
of  other  great  gardens  of  the  period.  Bird's-eye  views  such 
as  Kip  gives  are  necessarily  unfair  representations  since 
they  crowd  into  startling  juxtaposition  features  that  are  in 
reality  widely  separated,  and  since  they  do  not  even  suggest 
charms  of  color,  light  and  shade,  fragrance,  movement,  the 
change  of  the  seasons.  But  such  plans  are,  nevertheless,  of 
especial  value  in  revealing  the  governing  ideas  of  the  garden 
designers. 

One  of  these  ideas  is  admirably  brought  out  by  Sir  William 
Temple  in  his  essay,  "On  the  Gardens  of  Epicurus:  or  of  Gar- 
dening in  the  Year  1685,"  the  most  important  article  on  gar- 
dening published  in  England  in  the  seventeenth  century. 
It  is  mostly  given  up  to  exposures,  soils,  scions,  grafts,  seeds, 
and  the  like,  but  here  and  there  are  significant  statements 

Professor  Brinckmann,  director  of  the  Museum,  and  shown  at  the  great 
Gardening  Exhibition  in  Hamburg,  1897  (Albert  Forbes  Sieveking,  "Gardens 
Ancient  and  Modern,"  1897). 

I  Sir  John  Thynne  bought  Longleat  in  1541  and  was  occupied  during 
1567-79  in  building  the  mansion.  The  baron  Thynne  who  made  the  gardens 
became  viscount  in  1682  and  Kip's  plans  date  sometime  after  that  year.  Lady 
Winchilsea,  who  visited  often  at  Longleat,  wrote,  about  1690,  a  poem  to 
Lady  Worsley,  the  only  daughter  of  Viscount  Weymouth,  in  which  she  speaks 

of 

Longleate  that  justly  has  all  praise  engross'd, 
The  strangers  wonder  and  our  nations  boast. 

She  comments  on  the  finish  in  details  and  on  the  splendid  effect  of  the  whole. 

She  describes  labyrinths,  flowery  groves,  smooth  grass  terraces,  but  she 

devotes  her  most  eager  lines  to  the  fountains.     Words  are  inadequate  to 

Paint  her  Cascades  that  spread  their  sheets  so  wide 
And  emulate  th'  Italian  waters  pride. 
Her  Fountains  which  so  high  their  streames  extend 
Th'  amazed  Clouds  now  feel  the  Rains  ascend. 
Whilst  Phoebus  as  they  tow'rds  his  Mantion  flow 
Graces  th'  attempt  and  marks  them  with  his  Bow. 


x/ 


k/ 


250  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

of  theory.  "Among  us,"  he  says,  "the  beauty  of  building 
and  planting  is  placed  chiefly  in  certain  proportions,  sym- 
metries, and  uniformities,  our  walks  and  our  trees  ranged 
so  as  to  answer  one  another  and  at  exact  distances."  This 
defense  of  order  in  beauty  is  illustrated  by  his  description  of 
Moor  Park,  Hertfordshire,  according  to  his  taste  the  sweetest 
garden  ever  known.  It  was  divided  into  quarters  by  gravel 
walks,  and  adorned  with  two  fountains  and  eight  statues  in 
each  quarter.  The  straight  terrace  walk  had  a  summer- 
house  at  each  end.  On  each  side  of  the  parterre  was  a  cloister, 
over  each  cloister  an  airy  walk,  at  the  end  of  each  airy  walk 
a  summer-house,  and  so  on.^  "Certain  proportions,  sym- 
metries, and  uniformities"  is  a  phrase  characteristic  of 
classicism  in  thought  and  literary  style  as  well  as  in  gardens 
and  it  shows  how  completely  the  ideal  garden  represented  the 
dominant  thought  of  the  age.  Equally  characteristic  and 
interesting  is  Temple's  reason  for  approving  of  this  style  of 
gardening.  In  exact  figures,  with  regular  and  definite  inter- 
vals, it  is,  he  says,  "hard  to  make  any  great  or  remarkable 
faults."  In  this  sentence  there  is  surely  a  suggestion  of  one 
reason  for  the  love  of  order,  of  limits  clearly  set,  that  marked 
the  classical  spirit.  Symmetries  and  proportions  and  uni- 
formities were  a  specific  against  great  and  remarkable  faults 
such  as  had  resulted  from  the  undue  license  of  a  romantic 
age.  The  beaten  path  had  legitimate  attractions  for  an  age 
that  had  lost  its  way  among  the  pleasures  of  the  pathless 
woods. 

A  second  principle  underlying  the  formal  garden  was  the 
delight  men  took  in  controlling  Nature  and  in  seeing  evidences 
of   such   control.     Radiating   straight   avenues   as   against 

'  Horace  Walpole  says  of  this  description,  "Any  man  might  design  and 
hiiild  as  sweet  a  garden,  who  had  been  born  in,  and  never  stirred  out  of 
Holburn."  In  Mason's  "English  Garden"  is  another  scornful  description 
of  Temple's  idea  of  a  perfect  garden. 


.< 


GARDENING  251 

vagrant  paths;  water  flowing  out  of  marble  temples,  down 
marble  steps,  and  rising  again  in  almost  unbelievable  shapes, 
as  against  a  natural  winding  stream;  a  tree  cut  into  difficult 
shapes  as  against  a  tree  following  the  normal  spread  of  branch 
and  leaf — all  of  these  show  an  exceptional  satisfaction  in  the 
marks  of  human  interference  with  Nature.  Order  in  a 
garden,  and  skilful  management  of  Nature  by  art,  are  of 
course  legitimate  sources  of  delight,  but  when  these  two  prin- 
ciples are  pushed  to  the  exclusion  of  other  sources  of  delight, 
reaction  becomes  inevitable. 

Indications  of  revolt  against  the  formal  garden  began 
early  in  the  eighteenth  century.  Even  so  early  as  1703  in 
James's  translation  of  Le  Blond's'  treatise  on  the  theory  and 
practice  of  gardening  there  was  a  plea  for  simplification  in  the 
architectural  details  of  a  garden,  accompanied  by  a  protest 
against  fantastic  verdant  sculpture.  Plain  hedges  cut  square 
with  a  regular  succession  of  balls  on  top,  and  with  niches 
sunk  for  statues  or  seats,  was  all  the  elaboration  Le  Blond 
could  sanction.  No  new  principles  were  inculcated  by  Le 
Blond.  His  defense  of  "a  plain  regularity"  was  really  a 
protest  against  the  cluttered  and  confused  effect  of  gardens 
of  the  Dutch  type.  His  dictum  that  "  Art  should  give  place  to 
Nature,  Art  being  used  only  to  set  off  the  beauties  of  Nature" 
sounds  more  revolutionary  than  it  was  apparently  meant  to 
be,  for  the  gardens  he  describes  are  purely  of  the  formal  type, 
but  his  work  shows  a  recognition  of  some  of  the  whimsical 
extravagances  in  the  formal  gardens  of  his  day,  and  an  effort 
to  apply  the  recognized  rules  with  good  sense  and  a  certain 
degree  of  restraint. 

The  English  essayists,  notably  Addison  and  Pope,  were 
early  exponents  of  a  freer  style  of  gardening.    In  'The  Tatler' ' 

I  This  treatise  is  quoted  almost  entire  in  Nichols'  "English  Pleasure 
Gardens"  in  the  chapter  on  "French  Fashions." 


252  GARDENING 

(August  31,  1 7 10)  Addison  laughed  the  tuHp  mania  out  of 
court,  and  lightly  set  aside  "the  best  ordered  parterres"  as 
of  less  charm  than  "a  spot  of  daisies  or  banks  of  violets." 
Slight  as  it  is,  this  preference  for  the  wild  flower  over  the  gar- 
den rarity,  for  fields  and  hedge-rows  over  the  choicest  plant 
embroidery,  strikes  a  new  note  in  the  garden  literature  of  the 
eighteenth  century.  Two  years  later,  in  ''The  Spectator"  for 
September  6,  1712,  Addison  gave  an  account  of  an  imaginary 
garden  evidently  made  to  his  taste  and  far  enough  removed 
from  the  formal  garden.  The  irregularity  and  wildness  of 
his  flower-garden,  the  wandering  rill  that  runs  "as  it  would 
do  in  an  open  Field," ^  the  trees  and  shrubs  growing  freely, 
are  what  he  prides  himself  upon.  The  whole  picture  is  a 
plea  for  the  "beautiful  Wildness  of  Nature"  as  against  "the 
nicer  Elegancies  of  Art."  But  Addison's  strongest  utterance, 
and  the  one  in  which  the  theoretical  side  is  most  fully  dis- 
cussed is  in  "The  Spectator"  for  June  25,  17 12.  In  contrast- 
ing the  works  of  Nature  and  Art,  Nature  is  throughout  given 
the  preference. 

There  is  something  more  bold  and  masterly  in  the  rough  careless 
Strokes  of  Nature,  than  in  the  nice  Touches  and  EmbeUishments  of 
Art.  The  Beauties  of  the  most  stately  Garden  or  Palace  lie  in  a  narrow 
Compass;  the  Imagination  immediately  runs  them  over,  and  requires 
something  else  to  gratify  her,  but  in  the  wide  Fields  of  Nature  the  Sight 
wanders  up  and  down  without  Confinement,  and  is  fed  with  an  infinite 

variety  of  Images,  without  any  certain  Stint  or  Number Our 

British  Gardeners,  on  the  contrary,  instead  of  humouring  Nature,  love 
to  deviate  from  it  as  much  as  possible.     Our  Trees  rise  in  Cones,  Globes, 

I  Mr.  Barrington  in  "On  the  Progress  of  Gardening,"  1782 
("Archaeologia,"  Vol.  V)  says  that  Lord  Bathurst,  at  Ryskins,  near  Cole- 
brook,  was  the  first  to  make  a  winding  stream  through  a  garden.  "So 
unusual  was  the  effect  that  his  friend,  Lord  Stafford,  could  not  believe  it 
had  been  done  on  purpose,  and  supposing  it  had  been  for  economy,  asked 
him  to  own  fairly  how  little  more  it  would  have  cost  to  have  made  the 
course  of  the  brook  in  a  straight  direction." 


GARDENING  253 

and  Pyramids.  We  see  the  Marks  of  the  Scissors  upon  ever}^  Plant  and 
Bush.  I  do  not  know  whether  I  am  singular  in  my  Opinion,  but,  for 
my  own  part,  I  would  rather  look  upon  a  Tree,  in  all  its  Luxuriancy 
and  Diffusion  of  Boughs  and  Branches  than  when  it  is  thus  cut  and 
trimmed  into  a  Mathematical  Figure;  and  cannot  but  fancy  that  an 
Orchard  in  Flower  looks  infinitely  more  delightful  than  all  the  htde 
Labyrinths  of  the  most  finished  Parterre. 

Pope  followed  up  this  attack  in  a  wittier  fashion  in  "The 
Guardian"  (September  29,  1713).  He,  too,  prefers  "the  ami- 
able simplicity  of  unadorned  nature"  to  "the  nicer  scenes  of 
art."  Only  people  of  the  common  level  of  understanding 
are,  he  thinks,  "principally  delighted  with  the  little  niceties 
and  fantastical  operations  of  art,"  while  "persons  of  genius 
....  are  always  most  fond  of  nature."  His  chief  attack  is 
on  sculptured  greens,  and  he  gives  a  sarcastic  account  of  a 
town  gardener  who  was  so  skilful  that  he  could  cut  "family 
pieces  of  men,  women,  or  children,"  and  who  had  for  sale 
the  most  elaborate  greens.     His  catalogue  was  as  follows: 

Adam  and  Eve  in  yew;  Adam  a  Httle  shattered  by  the  fall  of  the 
tree  of  knowledge  in  the  great  storm;  Eve  and  the  serpent  very  flourish- 
ing. The  tower  of  Babel,  not  yet  finished.  St.  George  in  box;  his 
arms  scarce  long  enough,  but  will  be  in  condition  to  stick  the  dragon 
by  next  April.     A  green  dragon  of  the  same,  with  a  tail  of  ground-ivy 

for  the  present.      N.  B.  These  two  not  to  be  sold  separately 

An  old  maid  of  honour  in  wormwood Divers  eminent  modem 

poets  in  bays  somewhat  blighted  to  be  disposed  of,  a  pennyworth. 
A  quickset  hog,  shot  up  into  a  porcupine  by  its  being  forgot  a  week  in 
rainy  weather  [and  so  on]. 

That  the  true  principles  of  "  gardening  finely"  were  matters 
of  common  discussion  is  indicated  by  a  letter  from  Pope  to 
Lord  Bathurst,  September  23,  17 19,  on  the  subject  of  the 
gardens  the  prince  of  Wales  was  about  to  construct  at  Rich- 
mond. One  critic,  said  Pope,  protested  against  too  much  art 
for  according  to  his  notion  gardening  was  little  more  than 
"sweeping  Nature." 


254  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

There  were  some  who  could  not  bear  ever-greens,  and  called  them 
never-greens;  some  who  were  angry  at  them  only  when  cut  into  shapes, 
and  gave  the  modem  gardeners  the  name  of  ever-green  tailors;  .... 
and  some  who  were  in  a  passion  against  anything  in  shape,  even  against 
clipped  hedges,  which  they  called  green  walls. 

In  the  midst  of  this  literary  discussion  comes  the  work 
of  another  practical  gardener,  Stephen  Switzer,  a  pupil  of 
London  and  Wise.  His  "The  Nobleman,  Gentleman  and 
Gardener's  Recreation"  appeared  in  17 15  and  was  published 
again  with  additions  as  "  Ichnographia  Rustica"  in  1718. 
Switzer's  work  shows  several  indications  of  new  ideals.  He  is 
the  first  of  the  writers  on  gardens  to  hold  up  Milton's^  descrip- 
.  tion  of  a  garden  as  a  model  to  be  followed.  He  also  protested 
-against  the  cutting-down  of  fine  old  trees  at  the  command  of 
^o-called  "Improvers  of  Estates."  He  said  he  knew  not 
."whether  to  think  with  Pity  or  Disdain"  of  a  property  owner 
who  could  thus  sanction  the  wanton  destruction  of  "noble 
Oaks  and  other  umbrageous  Trees."  He  likewise  urged  the 
abandonment  of  box-work  and  "  such  like  trifling  ornaments," 
and  said  that  "  the  largest  walk  in  the  most  magnificent  garden 
one  can  think  of"  was  to  his  taste  inferior  to  "a  level  easy 
walk  of  gravel  or  sand  shaded  over  with  Trees  and  running 
thro'  a  cornfield  or  Pasture  ground."  More  revolutionary 
still  was  his  advice  to  abolish  walls  and  to  embellish  the  whole 
estate.  London  and  Wise  had  insisted  upon  the  boundary 
wall  as  necessary  to  give  dignity  to  the  gardens  and  to  unite 
them  architecturally  with  the  house,  but  Switzer  said  he 
would  "  throw  the  Garden  open  to  all  View,  to  the  unbounded 
Felicities  of  distant  Prospect,  and  the  expansive  Volumes  of 
Nature  herself."  This  substitution  of  the  sunk  fence  for 
the  boundary  walls  is  generally  counted  as  "the  beginning 
of  the  end  of  Formal  Gardening."     Horace  Walpole  credits 

1  "Paradise  Lost,"  Book  PV,  299. 


GARDENING  255 

Bridgeman  with  having  first  suggested  this  innovation,  but 
the  new  scheme  almost  certainly  originated  with  Switzer. 

In  gardening  theoretical  exposition  and  discussion  would, 
from  the  nature  of  the  case,  antedate  the  actual  construction 
of  gardens  according  to  new  principles.  Pope  was  one  of 
the  first,  if  not  the  first,  to  put  the  new  ideas  into  practice. 
In  1 7 18  he  took  a  long  lease  of  a  house  and  five  acres  of  land 
at  Twickenham,  and  he  at  once  set  about  the  construction 
of  a  garden  according  to  his  own  ideas.  Said  Horace  Wal- 
pole,  "It  was  a  little  bit  of  ground  of  five  acres,  enclosed 
with  three  lanes;  and  seeing  nothing.  Pope  had  twisted 
and  twirled  and  rhymed  and  harmonized  this,  till  it  appeared 
two  or  three  sweet  little  lawns  opening  and  opening  beyond 
one  another,  and  the  whole  surrounded  by  thick  impenetrable 
woods.  "^  The  plan  of  the  garden  drawn  by  John  Searle 
after  Pope's  death  shows  that  in  the  five  acres  Pope  had  a 
shell  temple,  a  large  mount,  two  small  mounts,  a  bowling 
green,  a  vineyard,  a  quincunx,  an  obelisk  in  memory  of  his 
mother,  and  hot-houses  and  gardeners'  sheds. ^  This  garden 
could  hardly  be  called  "natural"  but  it  was  an  undoubted 
protest  against  the  formal  school  and  was  so  regarded,  and 
Pope  was  counted  "the  prophet  of  the  new  school."  Blom- 
field  and  Thomas^  in  reviewing  the  decay  of  formal  gardening 
say,  "It  now  became  the  fashion  to  rave  about  Nature,  and 
to  condemn  the  straightforward  work  of  the  formal  school 
as  so  much  brutal  sacrilege.  Pope  and  Addison  led  the  way 
with  about  as  much  love  of  Nature  as  the  elegant  Abbe 
Delille  some  three  generations  later."     Mason  calls  Kent, 

1  Letter  from  Horace  Walpole  to  Sir  Horace  Mann,  June  20,  1760. 
For  a  description  of  Twickenham  see  "  Famous  Parks  and  Gardens " 
(Nelson  and  Sons,  London,  1880),  p.  134. 

2  Pope,  "Works"  (Elwin  and  Courthope),  V,  182. 

3  Blomfield  and  Thomas,  "The  Formal  Garden  in  England,"  p.  80. 


256  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

the  reputed  father  of  landscape  gardening,  "Pope's  bold 
associate.'"  Walpole  dwells  on  the  assistance  Kent  had  from 
Pope  and  thinks  that  the  ideas  of  some  of  Kent's  best  works 
were  really  borrowed  from  Pope's  garden  at  Twickenham.^ 
Hazlitt  emphasizes  the  healthy  and  important  influence  in 
this  direction  exercised  by  Pope.^  In  'The  Quarterly"  for 
18 1 6,  in  a  review  of  Humphrey  Repton's  work,  we  find  the 
influence  of  Pope  commented  on  as  follows:  "He  so  com- 
pletely developed  the  principles  of  true  gardening  that  the 
theories  of  succeeding  writers  have  been  little  more  than 
amplifications  of  his  short  general  precepts." 

Pope's  paper  in  "The  Guardian"  was  in  17 13,  and  his  gar- 
den was  practically  completed  by  1718^  but  his  most  influential 
utterance  on  the  theory  of  gardening  did  not  come  till  1731, 
and  before  that  time  other  significant  writings  had  appeared. ^ 
One  of  these  was  "Huetiana,"  a  translation  in  1722  of  the 
work  of  Pierre  Daniel  Huet  (1630-1721),  bishop  of  Avranches. 

1  William  Mason,  "The  English  Garden"  (1772).  In  the  edition  of  1738 
Dr.  Burgh  in  his  notes  calls  Bacon  the  prophet,  Milton  the  herald,  and 
Addison,  Pope,  and  Kent  the  champions  of  the  true  taste  in  gardening. 

2  Horace  Walpole,  "Essay  on  Modern  Gardening"  (written  in  1770, 
printed  in  1785). 

3  William  Hazlitt,  "Gleanings  in  Old  Garden  Literature,"  p.  66  (ed. 
1882). 

4  Letter  to  lervas,  December  12,  17 18.  Pope,  "Works"  (Elwin  and 
Courthope),  IV,  494. 

5  In  the  very  full  bibliography  (covering  the  years  1 516-1836)  given 
by  Miss  Amherst  in  "A  History  of  Gardening  in  England"  more  than  sixty 
books  or  articles  are  listed  between  1700  and  1725.  Most  of  these  seem 
from  the  titles  to  be  of  purely  horticultural  interest  and  have  to  do  with  the 
kitchen  garden  or  the  fruit  garden  rather  than  with  ornamental  grounds. 
One  popular  sort  of  title  in  which  the  word  "Recreation"  is  the  keynote 
would  seem  to  indicate  something  more  than  a  collection  of  practical  pre- 
cepts, but  on  investigation  "The  Ladies'  Recreation"  (1707),  "The  Clergy- 
man's Recreation"  (17 14),  "The  Gentleman's  Recreation"  (17 17),  "The 
Lady's  Recreation"  (17 18),  and  the  rest,  prove  to  be  severely  technical,  treat- 
ing only  of  the  planting  and  nurture  of  gardens. 


GARDENING  257 

In  the  chapter  on  "Natural  Beauties  preferable  to  Artistic 
ones"  he  comments  thus  on  the  bad  taste  of  his  age: 

Polite  society  ....  requires  palisades  erected  with  the  line  and 
at  the  point  of  the  shears.  The  green  shades  of  these  tufted  birches 
and  of  those  great  oaks  which  were  found  at  the  birth  of  time,  are  in 
bad  taste  and  worthy  of  the  grossness  of  our  fathers.  Is  not  to  think 
thus  to  prefer  a  painted  face  to  the  natural  colour  of  a  beautiful  counte- 
nance? But  the  depravity  of  this  judgment  is  discovered  in  our  pic- 
tures and  in  our  tapestries.  Paint  on  one  side  a  fashionable  garden, 
and  on  the  other  one  of  those  beautiful  landscapes  in  which  Nature 
spreads  her  riches  undisguised;  one  will  present  a  very  tedious  object, 
the  other  will  charm  you  by  its  delight.  You  will  be  tired  of  the  one  at 
the  first  glance.  You  will  never  weary  of  looking  at  the  other,  such  is 
the  force  of  Nature  to  make  itself  beloved  in  spite  of  the  pilferings  and 
deceits  of  art.^ 

There  were  doubtless  many  other  evidences  of  a  changing 
taste,  but  the  book  that  most  distinctly  marks  a  new  era  is 
Batty  Langley's  ''New  Principles  of  Gardening"  in  1728.  In 
his  Introduction  is  the  iconoclastic  statement,  "  Nor  is  there 
any  Thing  more  shocking  than  a  stiff,  regular  Garden  where 
after  we  have  seen  one  quarter  thereof,  the  very  same  is 
repeated  in  all  the  remaining  Parts."  His  campaign  against 
regularity  is  consistently  carried  out  through  the  book.  He 
comments  on  some  gardens  that  seem  to  him  "forbidding" 
because  laid  out  with  "that  abominable  Mathematical  Regu- 
larity and  Stiffness,  that  nothing  that's  bad  could  equal  them." 
And  again,  "Nor  is  there  any  Thing  more  ridiculous  .... 
than  a  Garden  which  is  regular."  Of  straight  walks  and 
hedges  he  wrote,  "  To  be  condemned  to  pass  along  the  famous 
vista  from  Moscow  to  Petersburg,  or  that  other  from  Agra 
to  Lahore  in  India,  must  be  as  disagreeable  a  sentence,  as 
to  be  condemned  to  labor  at  the  gallies.  I  conceived  some 
idea  of  the  sensation  ....  from  walking  but  a  few  minutes, 

»  Quoted  by  Sieveking  in  "Gardens  Ancient  and  Modern,"  p.  122. 


258  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

immured,  betwixt  Lord  D 's  high  shorn  yew  hedges." 

He  regards  cutting  down  fine  old  oaks  in  order  to  make  a 
regular  garden  as  "a  Crime  of  so  high  a  Nature,  as  not  to  be 
pardon'd."  In  planning  his  grounds  he  allows  "no  three 
trees  to  range  together  in  a  strait  line."  He  advises  conducting 
the  walks  so  that  they  shall  lead  through  "  small  Enclosures 
of  Corn  ....  Hop-Gardens  ....  Melon-Grounds  .... 
Paddocks  of  Deer,  Sheep,  Cows,  ....  with  rural  Enrich- 
ments of  Hay-Stacks,  Wood-Piles,  etc."  His  final  dictum 
is  that  all  gardens  must  be  "grand,  beautiful,  and  natural." 
He  is  thoroughly  romantic  in  his  idea  of  beauty,  for  not  only 
is  regularity  debarred,  but  "misshapen  Rocks,  strange  preci- 
pices. Mountains,  old  Ruins,"  are  counted  as  indispensable. 
If  ruins  cannot  be  actually  found  or  built,  he  would  even  have 
them  "painted  on  Canvas."  Batty  Langley's  book  is  of 
especial  importance  since  at  so  early  a  date  it  formulates 
many  of  the  principles  on  which  the  landscape  gardeners 
worked. 

Pope's  "Fourth  Epistle"  in  1731  marks  an  epoch  in 
English  garden  literature,  not  because  he  says  anything  new 
but  because  of  the  great  weight  of  his  name  and  because  of 
the  high  literary  quality  of  the  poem.  Pope's  scornful  pic- 
ture of  the  formal  garden  sums  up  most  of  the  characteristics 
objected  to  by  earlier  writers: 

His  gardens  next  your  admiration  call, 
On  every  side  you  look,  behold  the  wall  1 
No  pleasing  intricacies  inter\^ene, 
No  artful  wildness  to  perplex  the  scene: 
Grove  nods  at  grove,  each  alley  has  a  brother, 
And  half  the  platform  just  reflects  the  other. 
The  suffering  eye  inverted  Nature  sees, 
Trees  cut  to  statues,  statues  thick  as  trees; 
With  here  a  fountain  never  to  be  played; 
And  there  a  summer-house,  that  knows  no  shade: 


GARDENING  259 

Here  Amphitrite  sails  through  myrtle  bowers; 
There  gladiators  fight,  or  die,  in  flowers; 
Unwatered  see  the  drooping  sea-horse  mourn. 
And  swallows  roost  in  Nilus'  dusty  urn. 

Pope  also  gives  explicit  support  to  the  theories  of  the  land- 
scape gardeners.     In  the  lines, 

He  gains  all  points  who  pleasingly  confounds, 
Surprises,  varies,  and  conceals  the  bounds, 

are  given,  he  said,  in  concise  form  the  three  heads  to  which 
all  rules  of  gardening  are  reducible,  namely  "the  contrasts, 
the  management  of  surprises,  and  the  concealment  of  bounds." 
The  fundamental  distinction  between  Pope's  conception  of 
a  garden  and  that  of  the  formal  school  rests  in  the  fact  that 
Pope  would  seek  to  conceal  or  obscure  all  traces  of  man's 
interference  with  Nature,  while  Nature's  ductility  or  manage- 
ableness  was  frankly  shown  in  the  formal  garden  and  con- 
stituted one  of  its  charms.  Pope  was  also  definitely  in  hne 
*  with  the  landscape  gardeners  in  his  belief  that  the  garden 
should  melt  imperceptibly  into  the  surrounding  park  scenery. 
"Conceal  art,"  "destroy  boundaries,"  "imitate  Nature," 
these  were  Pope's  maxims  and  they  sum  up  the  doctrines  of 
the  new  school. 

The  three  professional  gardeners  who  established  the 
landscape  school  were  Bridgeman,  Kent,  and  Brown.  To 
the  first  of  these  Horace  Walpole  gives  much  credit.  After 
commenting  on  the  gardens  of  London  and  Wise  he  says, 

Absurdity  could  go  no  further  and  the  tide  turned.  Bridgeman,  the 
next  fashionable  designer  of  gardens,  was  far  more  chaste,  and  whether 
from  good  sense,  or  that  the  nation  had  been  struck  and  reformed  by 
the  admirable  paper  in  "The  Guardian,"  No.  173,  he  banished  verdant 
sculpture,  and  did  not  even  revert  to  the  square  precision  of  the  fore- 
going age.  He  enlarged  his  plans,  disdained  to  make  every  division 
tally  to  its  opposite;  and,  though  he  still  adhered  much  to  straight  walks 
with  high  clipped  hedges,  they  were  only  his  great  lines,  the  rest  he 


26o  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

diversified  by  wilderness,  and  with  loose  groves  of  oak.  ...  As  his 
reformation  gained  footing  he  ventured  further,  and  in  the  royal  garden 
at  Richmond  dared  to  introduce  cultivated  fields,  and  even  morsels 

of  a  forest  appearance But  the  capital  stroke,  the  leading  step 

to  all  that  has  followed,  was  (I  believe  the  first  thought  was  Bridgeman's) 
the  destruction  of  walls  for  boundaries,  and  the  invention  of  fosses — 
an  attempt  then  deemed  so  astonishing  that  the  common  people  called 
them  Ha!  Ha'sl  to  express  their  surprise  at  finding  a  sudden  and  unper- 
ccived  check  to  their  walk. 

Though  Switzer  gave  early  expression  to  the  ideas  praised 
by  Walpole,  Bridgeman  was  apparently  the  first  to  put 
these  ideas  into  practice  in  any  notable  way.  His 
work  at  Stow  was  complete  some  years  before  1724,  for 
in  that  year  Lord  Percival  wrote,  "Bridgeman  laid  out  the 
ground  and  plan'd  the  whole,  which  can  not  fail  of  recom- 
mending him  to  business.  What  adds  to  the  bewty  of  this 
garden  is,  that  it  is  not  bounded  by  walls,  but  by  a  Ha  Ha, 
which  leaves  you  the  sight  of  a  bewtifull  woody  country, 
and  makes  you  ignorant  how  far  the  high  planted  walks 
extend." 

William  Kent  (i 685-1 748)  was  Bridgeman's  successor  at 
Stow,  and  here  and  in  other  great  gardens,  he  made  bold  experi- 
ments along  the  lines  rather  timidly  marked  out  by  Bridgeman. 
Walpole  says  of  Kent,  "At  that  moment  appeared  Kent, 
painter  enough  to  taste  the  charms  of  landscape,  bold  and 
opinionative  enough  to  dare  and  to  dictate,  and  born  with  a 
genius  to  strike  out  a  great  system  from  the  twilight  of  imper- 
fect essays.  He  leaped  the  fence  and  saw  that  all  Nature  was 
a  garden."  Kent's  dominating  principle,  "  Study  Nature  and 
follow  her  laws,"  marked  the  completeness  of  his  break  with 
the  formal  schools,  and  was  the  basis  of  his  best  work,  but  it  led 
also  to  absurdities.  Since  Nature  apparently  abhors  a  straight 
line,  all  paths  and  avenues  and  streams  were  sent  serpentining 
around  in  the  most  tedious  and  unmeaning  fashion.     Francis 


GARDENING  261 

Coventry  said  that  no  follower  of  Kent  would  be  willing  to 
go  to  heaven  on  a  straight  line.  Kent  even  went  so  far,  at 
one  time,  in  his  desire  to  follow  Nature,  as  to  plant  dead  trees 
in  his  parks.  But,  on  the  whole,  his  work  was  marked 
by  a  genuine  love  of  Nature,  and  he  at  least  succeeded,  as 
Walpole  says,  in  ''routing  professed  art.^^^ 

Kent's  most  important  gardens  come  between  1730  and 
1748.  One  of  the  first  of  those  incited  by  the  beauty  of  his 
''Elysian  scenes"  to  make  over  their  own  domains  was  Lord 
Lyttleton.  His  estate,  Hagley,  was  a  ferme  ornee  much 
admired  in  its  own  day,  and  an  excellent  illustration  of  the 
new  style.  The  accompanying  print  shows  that  the  forest 
trees  come  close  to  the  house  and  grow  unfettered.  There 
are  open  glades  ornamented  by  temples  and  seats,  and  enliv^ 
ened  by  the  presence  of  animals,  which,  according  to  the  new 
scheme  of  beauty,  had  at  last  come  into  their  own  as  orna- 
mental elements  of  a  landscape.  Philip  Southcote's  "Woo- 
burn  Farm"  is  another  td^rXy  ferme  ornee.  Charles  Hamilton's 
"Pain's  Hill,"  in  Surrey,  shows  a  somewhat  different  type, 
which  Walpole  calls  "the  forest  or  savage  garden."  In  this 
garden,  continues  Walpole,  "all  is  great  and  foreign  and 
rude;  the  walks  seem  not  designed,  but  cut  through  the  wood 
of  pines;  and  the  style  of  the  whole  is  so  grand  and  conducted 
with  so  serious  an  air  of  wild  and  uncultivated  extent,  that 
when  you  look  down  on  this  seeming  forest  you  are  amazed 
to  find  it  contain  a  very  few  acres."  The  approximate  date 
of  "Wooburn  Farm"  and  "Pain's  Hill"  is  determined  by  the 
fact  that  in  1761,  in  Dodsley's  "London  and  its  Environs," 
they  are  spoken  of  as  "but  lately  laid  out,"  and  so  not  very 
much   advanced    in   growth,    but   yet    "very  beautiful  and 

I  There  is  a  discriminating  eulogy  of  Kent  by  Francis  Coventry  in 
"The  World,"  April  12,  1753.  But  see  also  Coventry's  "Strictures  on  the 
Absurd  Novelties  Introduced  into  Gardening,  and  a  Humorous  Description 
of  Squire  Mushroom's  Villa,"  "The  World,"  November  15,  1753. 


262  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

extremely  well  worth  seeing."'  The  most  famous  eighteenth- 
century  "ferme  orn^e"  was  Shenstone's  estate,  known  as 
"Leasowes,"  and  this  is  also  somewhat  earlier  in  date,  for 
a  poetical  tribute  dated  1754  calls  it  "that  new-form'd 
Arcadia."  Eight  other  poetical  eulogies  show  the  place  of 
Leasowes  in  popular  esteem.  Dodsley  published  a  map  of 
the  place  with  thirty  pages  of  minute  description  of  the 
arrangement  of  the  grounds.''  There  was  a  prescribed  order 
in  viewing  the  estate,  the  path  leading  from  surprise  to  sur- 

1  In  Mr.  Dallaway's  "Supplementary  Anecdotes"  to  Walpole's  "On 
Modern  Gardening"  (In  Walpole's  "Anecdotes  of  Painting,"  III,  819,)  is  the 
statement  that  Mr.  Southcote  at  Wooburn  Farm  in  Surrey,  and  the  Hon.  C. 
Hamilton  at  Pain's  Hill,  Surrey,  undoubtedly  preceded  Shenstone  in  priority 
of  design. 

2  Sir  Walter  Scott  said  of  this  sketch,  "I  can  trace,  even  to  childhood, 
a  pleasure  derived  from  Dodsley's  description  of  Shenstone's  Leasowes, 
and  I  envied  the  poet  much  more  for  the  pleasure  of  accomplishing  the 
objects  detailed  in  his  friend's  sketch  of  his  grounds,  than  for  the  possession 
of  pipe,  crook,  flock,  and  Phyllis  to  boot."  For  another  full  prose  descrip- 
tion of  Leasowes  and  the  neighboring  place,  Hagley,  see  Hugh  Miller's 
"Impressions  of  England  and  English  People,"  pp.  95-132, 147-69-  See  also 
"On  the  Tenants  of  the  Leasowes,"  Essay  XXI  in  "Essays"  (1758-65)  by 
Goldsmith,  for  a  description  of  Leasowes  gone  to  decay.  There  is  an  inter- 
esting supposed  conversation  between  Shenstone  and  a  utilitarian  cockney 
visitor  in  "Blackwood's,"  XIV,  262  (1823).  Another  early  description  is  in 
"Letters  on  the  Beauties  of  Hagley,  Envil,  and  the  Leasowes,"  by  Joseph 
Heeley,  1777.  There  are  poetical  descriptions  in  Woodhouse's  "Poems"  and 
in  Giles'  "Miscellanies."  In  Shenstone's  "Works,"  published  by  Dodsley 
in  1773  are  collected  nine  poetical  tributes  to  the  place.  In  "The  Spiritual 
Quixote"  (1773)  one  of  the  noted  exploits  of  Mr.  Geoffry  Wildgoose,  the 
quixotic  reformer,  is  an  attempted  defacement  of  the  gardens  at  Leasowes 
in  order  thereby  to  save  the  soul  of  his  friend  Shenstone  from  being  wedded 
to  idols.  The  influence  and  fame  of  this  garden  are  indicated  by  the  fact 
that  the  Marquis  de  Giradin  at  Ermonville  called  his  own  place  "The 
Leasowes  of  France."  Anderson,  in  his  Preface  to  Shenstone's  "Works" 
says  that  the  planning  of  pleasure  grounds  in  the  manner  of  Leasowes 
"seems  to  require  as  great  powers  of  mind  as  those  which  we  admire  in  the 
descriptive  poems  of  Thomson,  or  in  the  noble  landscapes  of  Salvator  Rosa, 
or  the  Poussins."  For  later  descriptions  see  " Shenstone  and  the  Leasowes" 
in  "Once  a  Week,"  1862,  by  Edward  Jesse. 


GARDENING  263 

prise,  a  gay,  lively  scene  being  immediately  succeeded  by 
one  "cool,  gloomy,  solemn,  and  sequestered."  Various 
scenes  were  sentimentally  suited  to  particular  persons,  or  to 
especial  trains  of  thought.  One  glade  was  devoted  to  lovers, 
another  to  fairies;  one  spot  was  set  apart  for  reflections  on 
death,  another  for  communion  with  the  spirit  of  Virgil. 
Each  separate  portion  had  its  rocks,  waters,  trees,  and 
shrubs,  arranged  according  to  a  ruling  idea,  the  idea  being 
brought  into  prominence  by  a  suggestive  inscription,  and 
further  emphasized  by  a  seat  so  placed  that  from  it  the 
idea  could  present  itself  with  cumulative  effect.  Shenstone 
paid  great  attention  to  artistic  combinations.  In  his  "Un- 
connected Thoughts  on  Gardening,'"  1764,  he  said  concern- 
ing the  art  of  "distancing  and  approximating," 

A  straight-lined  avenue  that  is  -widened  in  front,  and  planted  there 
with  ewe  trees,  then  firs,  then  with  trees  more  and  more  fady,  till  they 
end  in  the  almond-\^illow,  or  silver  osier,  will  produce  a  very  remark- 
able deception  of  the  former  kind;  which  deception  will  be  encreased, 
if  the  nearer  dark  trees  are  proportionable  and  truly  larger  than  those 
at  the  end  of  the  avenue  that  are  more  fady.  . 

Shenstone's  work  was  certainly  based  on  the  most  elaborate 
art  but  his  whole  purpose  was  so  to  use  art  as  to  conceal  it. 
"Art,"  he  said,  "should  never  be  allowed  to  set  a  foot  in  the 
province  of  nature,  otherwise  than  clandestinely  and  by 
night."  "Whatever  thwarts  nature  is  treason."  Whenever 
art  is  allowed  to  appear,  "night,  gothicism,  confusion  and 
absolute  chaos  are  come  again." 

One  of  the  earliest  poetical  champions  of  the  picturesque 
development  of  landscape  gardening  is  William  Mason, 
author  of  "The  English  Garden,"  a  long  didactic  poem, 

I  Downing,  in  "Landscape  Gardening,"  p.  20,  says  that  the  term  "land- 
scape gardening"  was  first  used  in  this  essay.  The  essay  begins,  "Garden- 
ing may  be  divided  into  three  species  ....  kitchen-gardening  ....  par- 
terre-gardening ....  and  landskip,  or  picturesque  gardening." 


264  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

begun  in  1767  but  not  published  till  1772,  and  then  in  an 
incomplete  form.  The  purpose  of  the  book  is  to  apply  "  the 
rules  of  imitative  art  to  real  nature."  Folly  and  Wealth  are 
called  "the  cruel  pair"  who,  "borrowing  aid  from  geometric 
skill,"  strive  by  line,  plummet,  and  unfeeling  shears,  to  deform 
the  fair  surface  of  mother  earth.  Claude  Lorraine,  Salvator 
Rosa,  Ruysdael,  are  called  upon  as  the  true  law-givers  in 
gardening.  Much  credit  for  the  banishment  of  false  taste 
is  accorded  to  Addison  and  Pope.     Of  the  latter  he  says, 

With  bolder  rage 
Pope  next  advances;  his  indignant  arm 
Waves  the  poetic  hrand  o'er  Timon'Q  shades, 
And  lights  them  to  destruction;  the  fierce  blaze 
Sweeps  thro'  each  kindred  vista;  groves  to  groves 
Nod  their  fraternal  farewell  and  expire. 

Mason  claims  both  Bacon  and  Milton  as  progenitors,  the 
former  "because  in  developing  the  constituent  properties  of 
a  princely  garden,  he  had  largely  expatiated  upon  the  un- 
adorned natural  wildness  which  we  now  deem  the  essence  of 
the  art;"  the  latter  "because  of  his  having  made  this  natural 
wildness  the  leading  idea  in  his  description  of  Paradise."^ 
Another  element  of  interest  in  Mason's  Preface  is  his  reason 
for  writing  his  poem  in  blank  verse.  He  confessed  that  the 
didactic  nature  of  the  theme  seemed  to  call  for  the  heroic 
couplet,  but  since  every  charm  in  gardens  springs  from  variety, 
since  the  gardens  he  praised  represented  Nature  scorning 
control,  he  felt  that  he  must  get  a  verse  form  as  unfettered  as 
Nature  herself.''     During  the  slow  publication  of  Mason's 

'  For  a  full  statement  of  Mason's  views  on  this  point  see  the  notes  to  the 
first  book  of  "The  English  Garden."  Switzer  had  already  made  a  similar 
claim  in  regard  to  Milton.  It  is  interesting  to  note  in  this  connection  that 
Kent  often  referred  his  love  of  Nature  in  gardens  to  his  study  of  Spenser's 
"Fairy  Queen." 

2  Mason,  "The  English  Garden,"  "General  Postscript." 


GARDENING  265 

"  English  Garden"  there  appeared  in  1770  Thomas Whateley's 
''Observations  on  Modern  Gardening,"  which  summed  up  in 
admirable  fashion  the  achievements  of  the  landscape  school. 
It  is  of  especial  importance  as  being  "the  very  first  treatise 
professedly  on  landscape  art."'  Walpole's  "The  History  of 
the  Modern  Taste  in  Gardening,"  was  written  in  1770,  but  was 
not  printed  till  1785  when  it  came  from  the  Strawberry  Hill 
press  with  a  French  translation  on  the  opposite  pages  by  the 
Due  de  Nivernois.  The  essays  by  Walpole  and  Whateley 
cover  about  the  same  ground  and  advocate  the  principles  of 
the  same  school,  but  Walpole's  fame  and  his  brilliant  style 
have  combined  to  give  his  work  pre-eminence,  and  his  essay 
ranks  in  the  garden  literature  of  the  eighteenth  century  as 
Sir  William  Temple's  essay  does  in  the  seventeenth  century. 
William  Kent's  successor  in  gardening  was  Lancelot 
Brown  (1715-83)  who  was  kitchen-gardener  at  Stow  when 
Kent  was  there  as  designer.  Brown's  original  work  does  not 
begin  till  about  the  middle  of  the  century  when  he  became 
royal  gardener  and  was  employed  at  Blenheim.  After  that 
he  was  concerned  in  laying  out  or  in  altering  "half  the 
gardens  in  the  country."  In  1767  Viscount  Irwin  thus 
eulogized  him: 

Bom  to  grace  Nature  and  her  works  complete 
With  all  that's  beautiful,  sublime  and  great. 
For  him  each  Muse  enwreathes  the  laurel  crown, 
And  consecrates  to  fame  immortal  Brown.^ 

1  In  "The  Garden:  As  Considered  in  Literature  by  Some  Polite 
Persons,"  edited  by  Walter  Howe  ("Knickerbocker  Nuggets"  series,  G.  P. 
Putnam's  Sons),  may  be  found  essays  by  Pliny  the  Elder,  Pliny  the  Younger, 
Lord  Bacon,  Sir  William  Temple,  Addison,  Pope,  Lady  Mary  Wortley  Mon- 
tagu, Whateley,  Goldsmith,  Walpole,  and  Evelyn.  A  fine  edition  of  Sir 
William  Temple's  essay,  "On  the  Gardens  of  Epicurus,"  with  illustrations, 
has  been  brought  out  by  Chatto  and  Windus. 

2  Viscount  Irwin,  "The  Rise  and  Progress  of  the  Present  Taste  in  Plant- 
ing," 1767. 


266  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

But  immortal  Brown,  while  enjoying  to  the  full  the  favor 
of  owners  of  great  estates,  had  sturdy  and  loud-spoken  critics. 
The  ruthlessness  with  which  he  destroyed  fine  old  grounds, 
and  especially  fine  avenues  of  great  trees,  the  unhomelike 
effect  of  his  stretches  of  bare,  undulating  lawn,  his  serpen- 
tining walks  and  streams,  aroused  active  hostility.  Cowper 
in  "The  Task,"  1785,  said, 

Improvement,  too,  the  idol  of  the  age, 
Is  fed  with  many  a  victim.     Lo,  he  comes! 
The  omnipotent  magician,  Brown  appears! 
Down  falls  the  venerable  pile,  the  abode 
Of  our  forefathers. 

•  •••■  •••• 

He  speaks.     The  lake  in  front  becomes  a  lawn; 
Woods  vanish,  hills  subside,  and  valleys  rise: 
And  streams,  as  if  created  for  his  use. 
Pursue  the  track  of  his  directing  wand, 
Sinuous  or  straight,  now  rapid  and  now  slow. 
Now  murmuring  soft,  now  roaring  in  cascades — 
E'en  as  he  bids.^ 

Late  in  the  century  Richard  Payne  Knight  was  so  extreme  in 
his  attack  on  Brown's  unpicturesque  smoothness  and  finish 
as  to  express  a  preference  even  for  the  formality  of  the  old 
school.     He  thus  describes  the  designers  of  the  school  of 

Brown: 

See  yon  fantastic  band. 
With  charts,  pedometers,  and  rules  in  hand. 
Advance  triumphant,  and  alike  lay  waste 
The  forms  of  nature  and  the  works  of  taste ! 
T'  improve,  adorn,  and  polish,  they  profess; 
But  shave  the  goddess  whom  they  come  to  dress; 
Level  each  broken  bank  and  shaggy  mound, 
And  fashion  all  to  one  unvaried  round; 
One  even  round,  that  ever  gently  flows, 
Nor  forms  abrupt,  nor  broken  colours  knows; 

I  Cowper,  "The  Task,"  Book  III,  "The  Gardens,"  1.  764. 


GARDENING  267 

But  wrapt  all  o'er  in  everlasting  green, 

Makes  one  dull,  vapid,  smooth,  and  tranquil  scene. 

Hence,  hence !    thou  haggard  fiend,  however  call'd. 
Thin,  meagre  genius  of  the  bare  and  bald; 
Thy  spade  and  mattock  here  at  length  lay  down, 
And  follow  to  the  tomb  thy  fav'rite  Brown; 
Thy  fav'rite  Brown,  whose  innovating  hand 
First  dealt  thy  curses  o'er  this  fertile  land; 
First  taught  the  walks  in  formal  spires  to  move. 
And  from  their  haunts  the  secret  Dr}'ads  drove: 
With  clumps  bespotted  o'er  the  mountain's  side, 
And  bade  the  stream  'twixt  banks  close  shaven  glide. 

Oft  when  I've  seen  some  lonely  mansion  stand 
Fresh  from  th'  improver's  devastating  hand, 
'Midst  shaven  lawns,  that  far  around  it  creep 
In  one  eternal  undulating  sweep; 

Tir'd  with  th'  extensive  scene  so  dull  and  bare, 
To  Heav'n  devoutly  I've  addressed  my  pray'r, — 
Again  the  moss-grown  terraces  to  raise, 
And  spread  the  labyrinth's  perplexing  maze; 
Replace  in  even  lines  the  ductile  yew. 
And  plant  again  the  ancient  avenue. 
Some  features,  then,  at  least,  we  should  obtain. 
To  mark  this  flat,  insipid,  waving  plain.  ^ 

To  his  mind  statues,  urns,  terraces,  mounds,  parterres, 
topiary  work,  though  all  "against  Nature,"  were  preferable 
to  a  whole  estate  "shorn  and  shaved"  after  the  manner  of 
Brown.  Sir  Uvedale  Price  (1747-1829)  to  whom  Knight 
dedicated  his  poem  also  opposed  Brown,  saying  in  prose 
with  almost  equal  heat  what  his  friend  had  put  into  verse. ^ 
The  points  made  against  the  works  of  Brown,  and  likewise  of 
his  master,  Kent,  were  the  tameness  and    monotony,  the 

1  Richard  Payne  Knight,  "The  Landscape,  A  Didactic  Poem,"  1794. 

2  Uvedale  Price,  "An  Essay  on  the  Picturesque"  (1794-98). 


268  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

over-cultivated  appearance,  of  their  grounds.  The  central 
thought  of  Knight  and  Price,  as  of  Gilpin,'  their  contem- 
pomry,  and,  earlier,  of  Mason  in  "The  English  Garden," 
was  that  a  garden  should  be  "picturesque,"  that  is,  should  be 
"composed"  as  a  picture  is.  Landscape  painting  secured  its 
best  effects  from  rough,  natural,  varied  scenes,  hence  gardens 
should,  if  possible,  show  similar  combinations.  The  essential 
difference  between  Brown  and  the  advocates  of  the  pictur- 
esque is  brought  out  by  two  plates  published  by  Knight. 
The  first  of  these  shows  the  truly  picturesque.  The  elements 
of  the  landscape  are :  a  stream  flowing  at  its  own  will  between 
natural  and  uneven  banks;  groups  of  spreading  trees  and 
shaggy  shrubs  in  natural  union;  fern-covered  knolls;  intri- 
cate thickets;  mossy  stones;  "cherished  weeds;"  a  prostrate 
tree,  rough  and  gnarled;  "native  stumps  and  roots"  over- 
grown with  wild  vines;  and  a  rude  bridge.  The  second 
plate  show^s  the  same  scene  as  "dressed  by  an  improver," 
evidently  of  the  Brown  school.  We  now  see  the  stream 
flowing  between  close-shaven  banks;  over  it  a  frail  Chinese 
bridge;  clumps  of  trees  in  the  most  orderly  and  trim  fashion; 
the  grounds  smoothed  and  cleaned  like  a  drawing-room; 
unmeaning  curves  in  stream  and  walk;  and  a  vast  expanse 
of  lawn  stretching  in  monotonous  undulations  to  the  bare- 
looking  modern  house. 

The  controversy  was  carried  over  from  Brown  to  his  dis- 
ciple and  imitator,  Sir  Humphrey  Repton  (i 752-1818). 
Repton  in  a  courteous  ''Letter  to  Uvedale  Price,"  1794,  and 
again  in  his  "  Sketches  and  Hints  on  Landscape  Gardening" 
(chap,  vii  and  Appendix),  1795,  defended  the  principles  of 
landscape  gardening  adopted  by  Kent  and  Brown  and  fol- 
lowed in  his  own  work.    Price  answered  in  "A  Letter  to  Hum- 

j  William  Gilpin,  "Observations  ....  Relative  Chiefly  to  Picturesque 
Beauty."     Eleven  separate  volumes,  1783-1809. 


GARDENING  269 

phrey  Repton,"  1795.  In  opposition  to  the  claims  of  the 
devotees  of-  the  picturesque  Repton  put  forward  the  beauty 
to  be  found  "in  the  milder  scenes  that  have  charms  for 
common  observers,"  and  he  protested  against  the  rigid  appli- 
cation of  the  laws  governing  landscape  painting  to  an  art  so 
different  in  its  views  and  possibilities  as  gardening.  But  Rep- 
ton, though  he  had  entered  upon  his  work  as  the  disciple 
and  imitator  of  Brown,  gradually  changed,  discarding  the 
formalities  of  Brown  and  adopting  a  more  varied  and  natural 
style  of  ornamentation.  He  made  use  of  some  of  the  ideas 
of  the  "artistical"  or  picturesque  school,  but  so  modified 
them  according  to  the  dictates  of  good  sense  and  good  taste, 
as  to  establish  the  beautiful  and  natural  parks  and  gardens 
in  which  England  led  the  world. 

The  picturesque  garden  had  two  offshoots  that  cannot 
be  passed  over.  The  idea  of  imitating  a  picture,  when  car- 
ried to  an  excess,  led  to  frantic  effort  to  put  cliffs,  precipices, 
gnarled  oaks,  ruined,  moss-grown  fortresses,  ivy-hung  abbeys, 
into  every  landscape.  Frequent  sage  advice  is  given  as  to 
the  best  ways  to  secure  these  effects.  Richard  Jago,  a 
friend  of  Shenstone,  urges  the  importance  of  appropriate 
sites — a  cliff  for  a  ruined  castle,  a  well-water'd  vale  for  "  the 
mouldering  abbey's  fretted  windows."'  In  1772  Gilpin 
criticized  Shuckburgh  because  the  ruins  were  not  "  happily 
fabricated,"  but  he  adds  in  exculpation,  "It  is  not  every 
man,  who  can  build  a  house,  that  can  execute  a  ruin." 
There  follows  a  long  list  of  the  mechanical  difficulties,  with 
the  following  conclusion,  "When  it  is  well  done,  we  allow, 
that  nothing  can  be  more  beautiful:  but  we  see  everywhere 

I  Richard  Jago,  "Edge  Hill,  or  the  Rural  Prospect  Delineated  and 
Moralized,"  1767.  In  this  poem  Jago  describes  the  country  seats  of  fifty 
gentlemen.  The  most  important  are  Farnborough,  Packington,  Shuck- 
burgh, and  Leasowes. 


270  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

so  many  absurd  attempts  of  this  kind,  that  when  we  walk 
through  a  piece  of  improved  ground,  and  hear  of  being  car- 
ried next  to  see  the  ruins,  if  the  master  of  the  scene  be  with  us, 
we  dread  the  encounter."  In  "The  Spiritual  Quixote,"  1773, 
is  an  amusing  account  of  a  visit  of  Sir  Geoffry  Wildgoose 
to  a  noted  estate.  The  ignorant  keeper  in  showing  off 
various  objects  of  interest  calls  attention  to  the  ^'ttirpentine 
walks,"  and  then  leads  the  way  to  the  ruins  explaining  that 
it  was  built  "but  a  few  years  ago;  and  his  Lordship  used  to 
say,  he  could  have  built  it  as  old  again,  if  he  had  had  a  mind." 
An  antiquary  present  exclaims, 

I  don't  at  all  approve  of  these  deceptions I  don't  wonder 

that  any  gentleman  should  wish  to  have  his  woods  or  gardens  adorned 
with  these  venerable  Gothic  structures;  as  they  strike  the  imagination 
with  vast  pleasure,  both  by  the  greatness  of  the  object,  and  also  by 
giving  us  a  melancholy  idea  of  their  past  grandeur  and  magnificence. 
But  for  a  man  to  build  a  ruin,  or  to  erect  a  modem  house  in  the  style 
of  our  Gothic  ancestors — appears  to  me  the  same  absurdity  .... 
as  that  which  many  people  have  of  late  run  into,  of  having  their  pictures 
drawn  in  the  habits  of  Vandyke  or  Sir  Peter  Lely. 

Mr.  Mason,  in  "The  English  Garden"  deprecates  building 
ruins,  but  thinks  a  man  to  be  congratulated  if  on  his  grounds 

one  superior  rock 
Bear  on  its  brow  the  shivered  fragment  huge 
Of  some  old  Norman  fortress;  happier  far, 
Oh,  then  most  happy,  if  thy  vale  below 
Wash,  with  the  crystal  coolness  of  its  rills, 
Some  mouldering  abbey's  ivy-vested  wall. 

This  search  after  ruins  was  a  morbid  and  exaggerated 
development  of  the  new  love  of  the  old,  the  wild,  the  pictur- 
esque, just  as  the  sentimental  melancholy  in  poetry  was  a  mor- 
bid and  exaggerated  development  of  the  new  poetic  turning 
to  emotional  introspection,  to  solitude,  to  thoughts  of  death 
and  the  grave.  In  the  extreme  form  both  phases  were 
ephemeral,  and,  it  is  interesting  to  note,  were  nearly  con- 


GARDENING  271 

temporaneous.  Batty  Langley  was  advocating  "ruins"  in 
gardens  in  1728  but  it  is  not  till  after  the  middle  of  the  century 
that  they  seem  to  have  been  accepted  as  a  necessary  part  of 
an  estate,  and  this  is  just  the  period  when  the  spirit  of  senti- 
mental melancholy  in  poetry,  a  spirit  that  had  found  early 
expression  in  the  night-piece  of  Parnell  and  Lady  Winchilsea, 
reached  its  culmination. 

The  subject  of  oriental  gardens  was  also  much  discussed 
in  prose  and  verse.  In  1752  appeared  ''An  Account  of  the 
Emperor  of  China's  Gardens  at  Pekin"  by  Pere  Attiret,  trans- 
lated by  Sir  H.  Beaumont  (i.  e.,  Joseph  Spence) . '  In  1 760  came 
Goldsmith's  ''Description  of  a  Chinese  Garden."  Most  in- 
fluential of  all  was  "A  Dissertation  on  Oriental  Gardens"  by 
Sir  William  Chambers  in  1772.  The  practical  influence  of  the 
discussion  of  Chinese  gardens  went  little  beyond  the  building 
of  summer-houses  and  bridges  in  the  Chinese  style.  But 
the  naturalistic  school  in  England  was  strengthened  by  an 
appeal  to  the  Chinese  method  of  copying  Nature  "in  all  her 
beautiful  irregularities,"  while  the  sentimentality  of  gardens 
such  as  Leasowes  seemed  to  receive  sanction  from  the  efforts 

I  There  are  many  indications  about  the  middle  of  the  century  of  a 
widespread  interest  in  all  that  pertained  to  China.  In  about  1750  Mrs. 
Montague  remodeled  her  house  in  Hill  Street  and  made  a  Chinese  room  of 
which  she  wrote,  "Sick  of  Grecian  elegance  and  symmetry,  or  Gothick 
grandeur  and  magnificence,  we  must  all  seek  the  barbarious  goiit  of  the 
Chinese;    and  fat-headed  pagods  and  shaking  manderins  bear  the  prizes 

from  the  finest  works  of  antiquity You  will  wonder  I  should  condemn 

the  taste  I  have  complied  with  but  in  trifles  I  shall  always  conform  to  the 
fashion."  As  early  as  1750  appeared  William  Halfpenny's  "New  Designs 
for  Chinese  Temples  ....  Garden  Seats,"  etc.  In  1753  in  "The  World" 
for  March,  Coventry  satirizes  the  rage  for  Chinese  furniture.  In  April  there 
is  a  protest  against  the  excessive  use  of  Chinese  bridges  and  buildings  in  gar- 
dens. In  February,  1754,  and  March,  1755,  are  pleas  for  an  "anti-Chinese 
society."  Chippendale's  "Gentleman  and  Cabinet-Maker's  Directory"  of 
1753  and  Sir  William  Chambers'  more  influential  "Book  on  Chinese  Build- 
ings," 1757,  did  much  to  establish  the  taste  for  Chinese  furnishings  and  for 
Chinese  garden  accessories,  and  also  to  render  that  taste  more  correct. 


272  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

of  Chinese  gardeners  to  construct  scenes  with  the  express  pur- 
pose of  arousing  certain  emotions.  The  "fancies  and  sur- 
prises" of  Chinese  eflfects  were  pleasing  to  those  who,  as 
Sir  WiUiam  Chambers,  thought  Kent's  Enghsh  gardens 
*'no  better  than  so  many  fields."  The  popularity  of  writings 
on  oriental  gardening  is  furthermore  significant  of  the 
enlarged  horizons,  the  prevailing  interest  in  the  new  and  the 
remote,  characteristic  of  one  phase  of  romanticism,  and  it  is 
to  be  classed  as  a  sign  of  the  times  along  with  the  interest 
in  oriental  eclogues  in  the  realm  of  poetry. 

Incomplete  and  cursory  as  so  short  a  study  of  so  great  a 
subject  must  be,  the  facts  here  presented  seem  to  warrant 
the  following  statements: 

The  feeling  toward  Nature  in  the  period  studied  shows  in 
gardening  the  same  order  of  development,  nearly  the  same 
dates,  and  the  same  phases  as  in  poetry.  There  was  first 
in  both  a  pleased  recognition  of  the  supremacy  of  man,  a 
rigid  exclusiveness,  a  love  of  order,  of  symmetry,  and  of 
definite  limits.  Then  came,  in  the  early  eighteenth  century, 
a  tentative  turning  from  art  to  Nature;  then  an  epoch-making 
statement  in  each  art,  Thomson's  "Seasons"  from  1726 
to  1730,  and  Pope's  "Epistle"  in  1731.  From  this  point 
on  the  de\'elopment  was  in  mass  and  variety  rather  than  in 
the  enunciation  of  new  principles.  The  growing  love  for 
wild  Nature  in  the  poetry,  and  the  passion  for  the  picturesque 
in  gardening  proceed  side  by  side.  At  the  end  of  the  century 
all  is  ready  in  both  arts  for  the  splendid  work  of  the  new  era. 
Throughout  the  century  both  have  had  curiously  correspond- 
ent offshoots  or  temporary  fads — sentimental  melancholy 
in  poetry,  and  the  ruins,  artificial  and  real,  in  gardening; 
foreign  eclogues  and  studies  of  distant  countries  in  the  one 
art,  and  Chinese  gardens  in  the  other. 


CHAPTER  VI 

LANDSCAPE   PAINTING 

It  is  the  purpose  of  this  chapter  to  indicate  how  far  and 
in  what  way  painting  lent  itself  to  the  expression  of  that  new 
love  for  Nature  which,  as  we  have  seen,  gradually  became 
dominant  in  the  realm  of  poetry,  fiction,  travels,  and  garden- 
ing.    Such  an  inquiry  is  beset  with  peculiar  difficulties  in 
the  case  of  pictures  because  they  are  seldom  dated.     At  best 
we  usually  know  only  whether  a  picture  is  early  or  late  in 
the  artist's  career.     After  the  beginning  of  public  exhibitions 
with  catalogues,  which  was  not  till  1760,  something  like 
accuracy  in  dates  becomes  possible,  but  the  information  thus 
obtained  is  not  entirely  reliable  for  the  reason  that  pictures 
were  not  always  exhibited  the  year  they  were  painted,  and  it 
is  certainly  inadequate  because  so  small  a  proportion  of  the 
pictures    painted    reached    any  exhibition.      Furthermore, 
the  pictures  most  important  in  establishing  the  early  use  of 
landscape  would   come  before   1760.     A  second   difficulty 
arises   from   the  inaccessibility  of  much   of  the  material, 
especially   the    important    early  material.     Whatever  was 
printed  in  a  book  had  many  chances  of  survival.     A  sinf^le 
brief  poem  indicative  of  a  new  love  of  Nature,  even  though 
a  poem  but  lightly  regarded  by  the  author  and  his  contem- 
poraries, would  hold  its  small  place  in  his  works  and  share  in 
the  reduplicated  life  of  the  tragedies,  satires,  and  didactic 
poems  to  which  he  intrusted  his   fame.      But  an   equally 
slight  picture,  though  equally  indicative  of  a  new  tendency, 
would  have  no  such  fate.     Unregarded,   unpurchased,   its 
ultimate  destiny  would  be  destruction,  or,  possibly,  burial 
in  some  attic.     Even  such  of  these  pictures  as  still  hold  their 

273 


274  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

own  in  some  collection  are  widely  scattered  and  often  in  pri- 
vate galleries  not  open  to  public  inspection. 

This  inaccessibility  of  much  of  the  original  material  would 
be  an  insuperable  difficulty  from  the  point  of  view  of  the 
student  of  technique,  but  is  less  formidable  in  the  present 
study  which  has  to  do  not  with  qualities  that  would  give  the 
picture  high  or  low  artistic  rank  so  much  as  with  the  thoughts 
the  artist  strove  to  express,  his  tastes,  his  feelings,  the  con- 
ception of  Nature  that  guided  his  work.  For  this  purpose 
we  have  as  authentic  material  not  only  original  pictures 
whenever  obtainable,  but  also  reproductions  of  various  sorts, 
along  with  biographies,  letters,  and  critical  essays.  From 
these  scattered  sources  it  becomes  possible  to  make  a  brief 
but  not  wholly  inadequate  statement  concerning  the  place 
of  the  external  world  in  English  eighteenth-century  art. 

I.      LANDSCAPE   IN   PORTRAITURE 

As  a  picturesque  accessory  in  portraiture  landscape 
received  early  recognition  in  English  art.  Even  the  minia- 
turists found  space  for  landscape  backgrounds,^  and  Van- 
dyck,  who  was  painting  in  England  from  162 1  to  1641, 
established  the  use  of  landscape  elements  in  large  portraits 
in  oil.  Sometimes,  where  the  portrait  is  inevitably  in  the 
open  air,  as  in  the  equestrian  portrait  of  Charles  I  in  the 
National  Gallery,  the  landscape  is  worked  out  with  much 
beauty  of  detail,  but  as  a  rule  Vandyck  makes  use  of  Nature 
as  an  accessory  rather  than  as  a  full  background.     Various 

1  As  illustrative  see  Isaac  Oliver's  (1566-1617)  portrait  of  Sir  Philip 
Sidney  who  is  represented  as  seated  on  a  turf-covered  rock,  leaning  against 
a  broad  tree-trunk,  while  in  the  rear  is  a  formal  arcaded  garden  with  a  dis- 
tant row  of  trees  sending  up  slender  green  spires  against  a  sunset  sky. 
(Reproduced  in  Gosse  and  Garnett,  "An  Illustrated  History  of  English  Lit- 
erature.") Compare  also  Oliver's  portrait  of  himself  where  is  seen  through 
the  open  window  a  broad  river  flowing  at  the  base  of  castle-crowned  crags. 
(Reproduced  in  Horace  Walpole,  "Anecdotes  of  Painting,"  IH,  176.) 


JOHN  MAITLANI),   DIKK  Ol-    LAUDERDALE 
By  Sir  Peter  Lely 


^\> 


^gi^AJRV 


OF  THE 


UNIVERSITY 

OF 
Cy^LI 


LANDSCAPE  PAINTING  275 

devices,"  as  an  open  window  or  door,  a  space  framed  in  by 
heavily  draped  curtains  and  massive  pillars,  or  an  outlook 
over  a  balustrade,  serve  to  enrich  the  picture  by  a  glimpse  of 
sky,  a  bright  horizon  line,  or  a  stretch  of  vaguely  indicated 
country.  He  also  frequently  uses  a  rock  as  the  direct  back- 
ground, the  rock  revealing  itself  as  such  only  at  the  edge 
where  tufts  of  foliage  or  a  gnarled  tree  branch  out  against 
the  sky  and  an  indeterminate  landscape.^  In  no  case  does 
Vandyck  subordinate  the  portrait  to  the  landscape,  nor  does 
he  combine  the  portrait  and  the  landscape  with  the  idea  of 
securing  a  general  decorative  effect.  The  landscape  remains 
always  simply  as  background  or  as  an  enlivening  detail. 

Vandyck's  most  important  successor,  Sir  Peter  Lely,  who 
was  in  England  from  1641  to  1680,  but  whose  great  vogue 
was  after  1660,  made  frequent  use  of  open-air  settings, 
especially  in  his  portraits  of  women.  The  "Windsor  Beau- 
ties"^ sufficiently  attest  his  command  of  landscape  effects. 
Princess  Mary  as  Diana,  the  duchess  of  Cleveland  as  Minerva, 
the  duchess  of  Richmond,  the  countess  of  Falmouth,  Mrs. 
Middleton  as  Pomona,  Mrs.  Stewart,  are  fair  women  whose 
picturesque  beauty  is  enhanced  by  the  poetic  and  romantic 
landscapes  against  which  they  stand.  There  is,  to  be  sure, 
no  attempt  at  verisimihtude.  There  is  no  thought  of  a  real 
landscape  to  which  the  person  in  the  picture  has  some  natural 
relation.  Walpole  says  in  derogation  of  Lely  that  his  nymphs 
trail  their  embroideries  and  fringes  through  the  thorns  and 

^  Among  Vandyck's  contemporaries  in  England  the  one  who  made 
most  successful  use  of  landscape  was  Mytens  (in  England  after  16 18), 
another  foreigner,  to  whom  is  attributed  the  interesting  portrait  of  "Sir 
Jeffrey  Hudson,  the  Dwarf"  at  Hampton  Court.  The  diminutive  figure 
is  represented  as  standing  in  a  full  landscape  in  which  there  is  an  admirable 
effect  of  distance  and  of  clear,  harmonious  coloring. 

2  Now  in  William  IH's  State  Bedroom  at  Hampton  Court  but  formerly 
in  the  Queen's  Bedchamber  at  Windsor  Castle. 


276  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

briars  of  pastoral  landscapes,  but  the  fact  is  that  these 
Dianas  and  Minervas  and  innocent  shepherdesses  of  the 
Nell  Gwynn  variety  are  no  more  in  these  landscapes  than 
they  are  actual  goddesses  or  country  maidens.  The  land- 
scape is  but  a  sort  of  wall-painting  or  figured  tapestry  used 
as  a  decorative  background.  These  portraits  are  of  impor- 
tance in  the  present  study  because  they  show  that  while  Lely 
as  portrait  painter  rightly  cared  especially  for  the  figure,  he 
had  yet  an  appreciation  not  common  in  his  time  of  the  beauty 
of  the  world  about  him. 

It  would  seem  as  if  the  example  of  Vandyck  and  Lely  and 
their  great  fame  would  have  established  the  use  of  landscape 
as  a  portrait  convention,  and  it  is  true  that  Lely's  pupils^ 
made  some  attempts  in  this  direction,  but  under  the  leader- 
ship of  Sir  Godfrey  Kneller  (1646-17 23)  the  custom  gradu- 
ally fell  into  disuse.  Kneller,  practically  supreme  in  Eng- 
land during  the  half-century  before  his  death,  painted  the 
kings  and  queens  and  royal  families  of  England,  the  beaux 
and  the  belles,  the  statesmen  and  the  wits,  so  that  a  gallery 
of  his  portraits  would  afford  a  survey  of  the  notable  social  and 
intellectual  England  of  his  day.  Commissions  came  in  upon 
him  too  rapidly  to  allow  much  time  for  carefully  studied 
backgrounds.      Sometimes  he  uses  a  rock    background  in 

I  The  ablest  of  Lely's  pupils  was  John  Greenhill  (1649-76).  One  of 
his  portraits  at  the  Dulwich  Gallery  is  described  by  Mr.  Cartwright  as  "My 
first  wife's  pictur,  Like  a  sheppardess."  It  shows  a  charming  lady  in  low 
satin  bodice  and  pearls,  her  right  hand  resting  on  the  head  of  a  sheep,  while 
behind  her  is  a  landscape  of  brown  trees  and  rough  tower-crowned  hills  under 
a  gray  and  misty  sky.  William  Wissing  (1656-87),  another  pupil  of  Lely, 
and  a  rival  of  Kneller  in  popular  favor,  also  made  some  attractive  use  of 
vaguely  indicated  stretches  of  landscape,  but  usually  his  portrait  accessories 
were  pillars,  heavily  draped  curtains,  stormy  skies,  with,  as  the  loveliest 
point,  a  flowering  rose-bush,  an  elaborately  painted  thistle,  a  vase  of  flowers, 
in  the  foreground.  Two  characteristic  portraits  are  those  of  Mrs.  Knott  and 
Mrs.  Lawson  at  Hampton  Court. 


LANDSCAPE  PAINTING  277 

the  manner  of  Vandyck,  but  even  more  conventionalized,  as 
in  his  ''Madam  Turner,"'  and  there  is  an  occasional  land- 
scape in  the  manner  of  Lely,  as  in  the  "Countess  of  Ranelagh."^ 
The  "Hampton  Court  Beauties,"^  painted  in  emulation  of 
the  "Windsor  Beauties,"  are  the  portraits  in  which  we  should 
expect  the  richest  use  of  landscape,  and  Kneller's  tall,  elabo- 
rately gowned  ladies,  do  stand  in  front  of  gardens  with  pillars 
and  balustrades,  with  hints  here  and  there  of  a  red  sunset, 
but  not  even  the  best  of  these  backgrounds,  that  in  the  por- 
trait of  Lady  Middleton  with  lamb  and  crook,  has  Lely's 
grace  and  poetic  suggestiveness.  Now  and  then,  when  there 
is  some  reason  to  emphasize  the  portrait  as  a  picture,  Kneller 
brings  all  his  ingenuity  into  play  and  crowds  the  canvas  with 
decorative  detail.  The  little  duke  of  Gloucester,  for  instance, 
is  rendered  almost  pathetically  childish  by  his  varied  and 
elaborate  surroundings,^  but  the  combination  of  draped 
curtains,  marble  steps,  massive  pillars,  a  huge  sculptured 
urn  loaded  with  flowers,  a  balustraded  terrace,  and,  beyond 
it,  a  park  landscape  under  a  cloudy  sky,  gives  an  impression 
of  confused  magnificence,  with  none  of  the  artistic  restraint 
of  Vandyck,  none  of  the  elusive,  romantic  charm  of  Lely. 

After  Kneller,  Jervas  (167 5-1 739),  Richardson  (1665- 
1745),  Hudson  (1701-79),  and  Highmore  (1692-1780)  were 
leaders  in  portrait  painting.  Jervas  has  occasional  effects 
reminiscent  of  Lely  as  in  the  portraits  of  Dorothy  Walpole 
and   Mrs.   Howard. ^     Hudson's   "Duchess   of  Ancaster,"^ 

I  Reproduced  from  engraving  by  Isaac  Becket  in  Cyril  Davenport, 
"Mezzotints,"  p.  94. 

*  Engraved  by  J.  Smith.  Reproduced  in  Davenport,  "Mezzotints,"  p.  100. 

3  In  William  Ill's  Presence  Chamber  at  Hampton  Court.  "  Lady  Middle- 
ton"  is  No.  54. 

4  Reproduced  in  Mrs.  Oliphant's  "The  Reign  of  Queen  .\nne." 

s  Reproduced  in  Walpole,  "Letters,"  IX,  484,  and  II,  Frontispiece. 
6  Engraved  by  J.  McArdell,  a  famous   example  of  his  work.     Repro- 
duced in  Davenport,  "Mezzotints." 


278  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

clad  in  the  richest  brocade,  roped  with  pearls,  stands  stiffly 
erect  in  front  of  a  rock  that  harks  back  to  Vandyck.  These 
pictures  and  others  of  their  class  well  illustrate  the  wooden 
and  unmeaning  use  of  landscape  characteristic  of  the  mid- 
eighteenth  century.  Certain  conventions  from  the  great 
days  of  a  century  earlier  still  remained,  but  deprived  of  all 
charm  or  significance.  With  the  successors  of  Kneller  por- 
trait painting  reached  the  lowest  point  of  the  decline  that  had 
been  steadily  going  on  since  Vandyck,  or,  at  least,  since  Lely. 
Walpole,  who  had  a  high  opinion  of  Kneller,  said  of  his 
successors, 

They  have  either  left  us  hideous  and  literal  transcripts  of  the  awk- 
ward, tight-laced,  behooped,  and  bewigged  generation  of  beaux  and 
belles  before  them;  or,  quitting  all  probabihty,  or  even  possibility, 
have  given  us  Arcadian  shepherdesses,  and  soi-disant  Greeks  and 
Romans,  where  wigs  and  flounces  and  frippery  mingle  with  crooks, 
sheep,  thunderbolts,  and  Roman  draperies.^ 

The  darkness  that  seemed  thus  at  the  middle  of  the  cen- 
tury to  be  settling  down  around  the  art  of  portrait  painting 
was,  however,  the  darkness  that  precedes  the  dawn,  or,  in 
this  instance,  the  full  day,  for  with  the  first  portraits  of  Sir 
Joshua  Reynolds  after  he  returned  from  Rome  in  1752,  and 
with  the  work  of  Thomas  Gainsborough,  his  immediate 
contemporary,  we  enter  upon  the  supreme  period  of  British 
portraiture,  a  period  in  which  there  seemed  suddenly  to 
spring  into  being  all  the  grace  and  skill,  all  the  sense  of 
beauty  and  poetry,  all  the  power  of  imaginative  interpretation, 
that  had  been  waning  in  English  art  annals  since  the  days 
of  Vandyck.  And  with  this  great  revival  in  the  art  there 
came  a  striking  revival  of  interest  in  the  use  of  landscape  in 
portraiture. 

Sir  Joshua  Reynolds  (1723-92)  made  use  of  landscape 

I  Horace  Walpole,  "Anecdotes  of  Painting,"  II,  442. 


LANDSCAPE  PAINTING  279 

backgrounds  in  portraits  of  various  kinds.  His  full-length 
portrait  of  Keppel  was  completed  in  1753  and  was  the  picture 
that  established  his  fame.  It  is  thus  described  by  Lord 
Gower:  "The  gallant  young  sailor  is  represented  as  literally 
walking  out  of  the  canvas.  His  countenance  is  full  of  ani- 
mation, and  as  he  seems  to  step  briskly,  bareheaded,  across 
the  beach,  his  locks  are  blown  backward  from  his  forehead 

by  the  gale In  the  background  a  wild  sea  breaks  on 

the  shore."  This  portrait,  says  Lord  Gower,  "  made  an  epoch 
in  that  form  of  art."^  The  epoch-making  characteristics  of 
the  picture  were,  in  the  first  place,  the  striking  animation  and 
naturalness  of  the  figure  as  opposed  to  the  monotony  and 
woodenness  of  pose  adopted  by  artists  such  as  Hudson,  and, 
in  the  second  place,  the  genuine  open-air  effect  of  the  whole 
picture,  the  perfectly  simple  and  natural  union  of  the  figure 
and  the  landscape.  In  some  other  portraits  of  men  Reynolds 
made  use  of  landscape  backgrounds,  as  in  the  half-lengths 
of  Admiral  Keppel  (1780)  and  that  of  Lord  Heathfield 
(1787)  in  which  the  figures  stand  forth  boldly  against  a 
stormy  sky  with  a  suggestion  of  an  ocean  view.  Some  land- 
scapes show  reminiscences  of  Vandyck,  as  in  the  backgrounds 
of  the  equestrian  portraits  of  Captain  Orme  (exhibited  1761) 
and  Lord  Ligonier''  (about  1760),  or  in  the  conventionalized 
tree-trunks  and  distant  view  in  the  half-length  of  the  arch- 
bishop of  Armagh. 3  It  is,  however,  in  full-lengths  of  women 
and  children,  either  singly  or  in  groups,  that  Sir  Joshua 
makes  freest  use  of  landscape.  The  little  Princess  Sophia 
Matilda  of  Gloucester,  a  chubby  baby  rolling  on  the  grass 
with  her  dog;  Prince  William  of  Gloucester  in  plum-colored 

1  Lord    Ronald    Sutherland    Gower,    F.S.A.,  "Sir   Joshua    Reynolds, 
F.R.A.,"  p.  23. 

2  The  last  four  portraits  mentioned  are  in  the  National  Gallery. 

3  Reproduced  in  Lord  Gower's  "Sir  Joshua  Reynolds." 


28o  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

cavalier  costume  standing  on  a  hill  against  the  sky;  the  Lady 
Caroline  Montague  Scott,  a  bright-eyed  little  maiden  standing 
in  a  snowy  landscape,  her  hands  in  a  big  muff;  little  Miss 
Cholmondeley  valiantly  carrying  her  dog  over  a  brook;  the 
four-year-old  Viscount  Althorp,  a  quaint  little  figure  outlined 
against  lovely  effects  of  sky  and  foliage,  are  but  a  few  of  the 
children  Reynolds  has  painted  with  admirable  life  and  charm 
and  in  the  midst  of  natural  out-door  surroundings.  Even 
more  elaborate  attention  is  given  to  the  landscape  backgrounds 
in  the  full-lengths  of  women.  Such  portraits  as  those  of  the 
Marchioness  Camden,  Mrs.  Crewe  as  St.  Genevieve,  the 
Viscountess  Crosbie,  Lady  Betty  Compton,  the  Duchess  of 
Devonshire,  the  countess  of  Salisbury,  Miss  Mary  Moncton, 
the  Duchess  of  Rutland,  Lady  Bampfylde,  Mrs.  Bonfoy,  or 
Mrs.  Carnac,  show  abundantly  the  skill  with  which  Reynolds 
united  figures,  drapery,  and  landscape  so  as  to  secure  a 
harmonious  and  decorative  general  effect.  ^  It  often  happens, 
indeed,  that  the  faces  of  these  tall  aristocratic  ladies  are 
hardly  remembered,  so  strongly  is  the  attention  caught  by 
the  flow  of  line,  the  shimmer  of  fabrics,  the  abundance  of 

I  These  pictures  of  women  and  children  are  for  the  most  part  in  private 
galleries.  But  no  artist  has  been  more  fully  and  adequately  represented  in 
engravings  than  Reynolds.  In  the  Print  Room  of  the  British  Museum  there 
are. twelve  large  albums  of  prints  after  his  paintings.  There  are  also  numer- 
ous reproductions  in  books  such  as  Cyril  Davenport's  "Mezzotints,"  Lord 
Gower's  "Sir  Joshua  Reynolds,"  Alfred  Whitman's  "The  Print  Collector's 
Handbook,"  Gordon  Goodwin's  "British  Mezzotinters,"  and  JuUa  Frankau's 
"Eighteenth-Century  Colour-Prints."  The  most  important  of  the  engravers 
of  Reynolds'  pictures  were  James  McArdell  (1729-65), Valentine  Green  (1739- 
1813),  S.  W.  Reynolds  (1773-1835),  John  Raphael  Smith  (1752-1812)  and 
Caroline  Watson  (1761  ?-i8i4).  Valentine  Green  began  in  1780  a  series  of 
Reynolds'  "  Beauties  of  the  Present  Age"  on  the  plan  of  Lely's  and  Kneller's 
"Beauties."  These  engravings  were  originally  issued  at  fifteen  shillings 
each,  but  they  have  increased  enormously  in  value.  At  a  recent  sale  a  proof 
of  the  "Duchess  of  Rutland"  brought  a  thousand  pounds,  nearly  five  times 
as  much  as  Reynolds  received  for  the  original  picture  (Salaman,  "Old 
Engravers  of  England,"  p.  138). 


MRS.  CARNAC 

By  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds 


OF   THE 

UNIVERSITY 

OF 


LANDSCAPE  PAINTING  281 

charming  scenic  detail.  Mrs.  Jameson  says  that  Reynolds 
was  the  first  English  artist  to  venture  upon  light  and  gay  land- 
scape backgrounds.  In  his  portraits  of  women  we  do  not 
find  the  stormy  skies,  rude  rocks,  and  blustering  weather 
against  which  Lely's  ladies  posed.  Reynolds  delights  in 
typical  English  park  scenery,  with  its  variety  of  wood  and 
water,  its  soft,  dim  distances,  its  rich  clumps  of  trees.  He 
often  uses,  too,  the  architectural  elements  appropriate  to  a 
park,  but  never  in  a  hard  or  obtrusive  fashion.  His  steps 
and  balustrades,  his  columns  and  urns,  gleam  out  from 
masses  of  foliage  or  are  overhung  with  a  wealth  of  vines 
and  flowers.  The  whole  effect  is  rich  and  stately,  suggestive 
of  lovely  order  and  nurture,  and  is  particularly  well  suited 
to  the  fashionable  dames  who  are  thus  enshrined.  In  gen- 
eral we  may  say  that  Sir  Joshua's  use  of  landscape  in  por- 
traiture surpasses  in  amount  that  of  any  preceding  master, 
and  that  his  scenic  backgrounds  are  unrivaled  in  the  qualities 
of  naturalness  and  charm,  and  in  artistic  suitability  for  the 
personages  portrayed.^ 

Thomas  Gainsborough  (1727-88)  uses  landscape  with 
as  much  insistence  as  Reynolds,  but  not  in  the  same  manner. 
His  backgrounds  are  not  so  elaborately  worked  out,  yet  with 
all  their  slightness  and  sketchiness  they  are  more  imagina- 
tively suggestive.  It  is,  indeed,  astonishing  to  perceive  with 
how  little  reality  of  detail  Gainsborough  contrives  to  call  up 
a  vital  impression  of  Nature  in  her  most  enchanting  aspects. 
A  still  subtler  source  of  charm  rests  in  his  power  to  fuse 

I  It  seems  strange  that  Reynolds  did  not  do  more  in  the  way  of  pure 
landscape.  In  the  South  Kensington  gallery  is  a  pleasing  little  brown  land- 
scape, "The  Entrance  to  Mrs.  Thrale's  Park  at  Streatham."  Lord  Gower 
in  "Sir  Joshua  Reynolds,  R.A."  reproduces  a  landscape  in  the  possession  of 
Lord  Northcote  and  entitled  "A  Study  from  Sir  Joshua's  Villa  at  Richmond 
Hill."  We  find  mention,  also,  of  other  landscapes,  but  they  form  no  signifi- 
cant part  of  his  work. 


282  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

figures  and  landscape  into  an  effect  of  perfect  unity.  The 
"Musidora"  in  the  National  Gallery  is  a  picture  before 
which,  even  in  its  present  state,  one  could  linger  long  in 
absorbed  contemplation,  without  once  mentally  separating 
the  figure  and  its  surroundings.  There  is  such  a  harmonious 
blending  of  lovely  lines,  of  soft,  rich  hues,  that  the  whole 
picture  seems  to  have  sprung  from  a  single  impulse.  Sir 
Walter  Armstrong  says  that  in  general  Gainsborough's 
landscape  backgrounds  "are  nothing  more  than  the  exten- 
sion over  the  unoccupied  part  of  the  canvas  of  the  sentiment 
governing  the  sitter."^  Mr.  Van  Dyke  points  out  the  effect 
of  the  landscape  in  the  famous  portrait  of  "Mrs  Graham," 
where  "  the  castle  wall,  the  deep  glen  at  the  left,  the  loneliness 
of  the  background,  add  to  the  romance  of  her  face.^  The 
portrait  of  Mrs.  Robinson  as  "Perdita"^  or  that  of  "Mrs. 
Sheridan"'*  are  even  more  convincing  proofs  of  his  ability 
to  present  a  landscape  inexplicably  akin  to  the  personality 
of  the  sitter,  a  landscape  that  in  some  indefinably  but  most 
real  way  interprets  and  emphasizes  that  personality.  It  is 
in  full-length  portraits  of  women  whose  beauty  is  enhanced 
by  an  air  of  pensive  melancholy  that  this  subtle  use  of  land- 
scape is  mainly  found.  But  in  group  portraits  such  as  that 
of  "Mrs  Moody  and  her  Children,"  or,  lovelier  still,  that  of 
"Mrs.  Sheridan  and  Mrs.  Tickell,"^  are  landscape  back- 
grounds every  line  and  color  of  which  serve  to  carry  out  and 
complete  the  grace  and  tenderness  characteristic  of  the  figures. 

I  Sir  Walter  Armstrong,  "Gainsborough  and  His  Place  in  British  Art," 
p.  171. 

a  John  C.  Van  Dyke,  "Old  English  Masters,"  p.  58. 

3  In  the  Wallace  Gallery,  London.     Reproduced  in  Sir  Walter  Arm- 
strong's "Gainsborough,"  p.  88. 

4  Owned  by  the  Lord  Rothschild.     Reproduced  in  Sir  Walter  Arm- 
strong's "Gainsborough,"  p.  124. 

5  These  two  pictures  are  in  the  Dulwich  Gallery,  London. 


SQUIRE  HALLET  AND  HIS  WIFE 
By  Thomas  Gainsborough 


■''    OF  T-^^.^> 


OF 


^ALlFOgJ 


LANDSCAPE  PAINTING  283 

In  the  "Squire  Hallet  and  his  Wife"^  there  is  a  harmony  so 
penetrating  that  it  haunts  the  mind  hke  music.  In  "The 
Mall"^  where  there  is  no  individual  portraiture  we  seem  at 
first  to  have  but  a  Watteau-hke  effect  of  fashionably  attired 
dames  in  a  setting  of  rich  park  scenery.  But  presently  we 
perceive  that  the  whole  picture  conveys  a  sense  of  pathos. 
The  ancient  trees  stretching  up  against  the  soft  sky  in  imme- 
morial majesty  and  beauty  give  to  the  onlooker  a  keen 
sense  of  the  futile  and  evanescent  life  fluttering  away  its 
brief  hour  under  their  solemn  and  mysterious  shadows.^ 

On  the  same  wall  in  the  Wallace  collection  hang  Reynolds' 
"Mrs.  Carnac"  and  Gainsborough's  "Perdita."  Both  pic- 
tures exemplify  the  possible  heightened  attractiveness  of  a 
portrait  in  which  the  artist  has  made  skilful  use  of  a  land- 
scape background.  They  also  serve  to  illustrate  a  central 
point  of  unlikeness  in  the  use  of  landscape  by  the  two  great 
artists.  In  Reynolds'  picture  the  beautiful  setting  can  be 
conceived  of  as  a  landscape  quite  apart  from  the  stately  lady 
whose  pose,  figure,  and  draperies  it  so  advantageously  sets 
off.  There  is  artistic  harmony  but  there  is  no  essential  union. 
But  Gainsborough's  background  cannot  be  thought  of  by 
itself.  It  merely  makes  us  conscious  that  the  fair  Perdita 
is  out  in  the  light  and  air,  that  behind  her  are  real  forest 
depths,  that  the  pensive,  appealing  charm  of  her  face  is ' 
enhanced  by  the  pathetic  loveliness  of  Nature  herself.  With 
Gainsborough  we  have  reached  the  subtlest  and  most  perfect 
use  of  Nature  in  portraiture,  and  his  supremacy  is  based  on 
the  fact  that  his  landscapes  serve  the  true  purpose  of  back- 

1  Owned  by  the  Lord  Rothschild.     Reproduced  by  Braun,  Clement  & 
Cie. 

2  Owned  by  Sir  Algernon  Neeld.     Reproduced  in  Sir  Walter  Armstrong's 
"Gainsborough,"  p.  140. 

3  For  an  account  of  the  engravings  from  Gainsborough's  pictures  see 
H.  P.  Home,  "Engraved  Works  of  Gainsborough  and  Romney,"  1891. 


284  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

grounds.  They  never  offer  an  individual  beauty  that  rivals 
or  eclipses  that  of  the  person,  but  they  contribute  to  build  up 
an  impression  the  very  heart  of  which  is  the  characteristic 
effect  made  by  the  sitter. 

After  Gainsborough,  from  the  studios  of  great  artists  such 
as  Romney,  Raeburn,  Opie,  and  Hoppner,  Sir  Thomas 
Lawrence  and  Sir  Thomas  Beechey,  and  many  of  lesser  note, 
came  many  portraits  with  landscape  work  of  power  and 
significance,  but  it  is  not,  in  pursuance  of  this  topic,  necessary 
to  take  up  their  work  in  detail,  for  the  reason  that  Reynolds 
and  Gainsborough  led  the  way,  and  for  the  further  reason 
that  after  them  there  arose  no  new  or  superior  way  of  using 
Nature  in  portraiture. 

II.      LANDSCAPE   PAINTING 

English  landscape  painting  from  1660  to  1800  falls  natu- 
rally into  three  periods.  During  the  first  of  these  which  ends 
in  1707  with  the  death  of  the  younger  Van  de  Velde,  there  was 
considerable  landscape  work,  but  nearly  all  of  it  was  by  for- 
eign artists.'     We  do,  to  be  sure,  find  early  in  the  period  an 

i  Aside  from  the  works  of  the  Van  de  Veldes  English  public  galleries 
have  very  few  examples  of  landscape  painting  in  England  during  the  years 
1660-1707.  From  Walpole's  "Anecdotes  of  Painting"  and  from  standard 
dictionaries  of  art  and  biography  a  partial  list  of  the  foreigners  painting  in 
England  at  this  time  may  be  compiled.  Chief  among  them  were  Hendrik 
Danckerts  who,  after  painting  landscapes  in  Italy,  came  to  England  about 
1667  and  was  engaged  by  Charles  II  to  paint  views;  Cornelius  Bol  who,  dur- 
ing the  same  reign,  was  painting  views  of  the  Thames;  John  Looten  (d.  1680), 
whose  chosen  subjects  were  "glades,  dark  oaken  groves,  land-storms,  and 
waterfalls;"  Henry  Lankrink  (1628-92),  a  successful  imitator  of  Salvator 
Rosa  in  the  depiction  of  rough  country,  was  especially  commended  for  "the 
beauty  and  freedom"  of  his  skies,  and  employed  by  Lely  to  paint  some  of 
his  backgrounds;  John  Sybrecht  (1630-1703),  a  painter  of  pictures  of  the 
Rhine,  who  was  in  England  after  1680,  and  whose  "Prospect  of  Longleat"  was 
one  of  the  pictures  at  Newstead  Abbey,  Lord  Byron's  home;  Philip  Boul  who 
left  a  pocketbook  of  sketches  of  Derbyshire  and  the  Peak,  "worked  out  in 
the  Salvator  Rosa  style;"    Henry  Verzagen  who  devoted  himself  to  "ruins 


LANDSCAPE  PAINTING  285 

Englishman,  Robert  Streater  (1624-80),  who,  in  addition  to 
his  fame  as  a  painter  of  historical  and  mythological  subjects 
on  walls  and  ceilings,  was  counted  "incomparable"  in  land- 
scape. His  contemporary  popularity  is  attested  by  the  fact 
that  in  James  II's  collection  were  five  of  his  landscapes,  but 
such  examples  of  his  work  as  are  accessible  in  public  galleries 
hardly  substantiate  his  reputation.  He  founded  his  style,  it  is 
said,  on  "the  late  Italians."  ^  At  the  end  of  the  period  is  Francis 
Barlow  (i 626-1 702)  who,  anticipating  the  themes  of  George 
Morland,  crowded  his  farmyard  scenes  with  fowls  of  many 
varieties,  with  pigs,  sheep,  horses,  cows,  donkeys,  and  even 
deer.  A  tinted  drawing  by  him  in  the  South  Kensington 
Gallery  illustrates  his  lively  conceptions,  and  indicates  his 
clever  use  of  landscape  backgrounds.  Working  with  Barlow 
as  an  engraver  was  Francis  Place''  (i 647-1 728)  whose  best 
plates  were  of  animals,  but  who  sometimes  etched  landscapes 
"for  his  own  amusement."  A  print  of  his  "View  of  Scar- 
borough" in  the  Print  Room  of  the  British  Museum  shows, 
in  spite  of  the  conventional  wool-bag  clouds,  a  notable 
attempt  to  represent  truly  a  bold  and  rugged  cliff  with  a 
distant  sea-view  and  waves  rolling  gently  in  on  a  curving 

and  landscapes;"  Adrien  Vandiest  (1655-1704),  who  came  to  England  in 
1672  and  seven  of  whose  landscapes  were  in  Sir  Peter  Lely's  collection;  Jan 
Van  Wyck  (d.  1702)  who  painted  "excellent  landscapes"  from  scenes  in 
Scotland  and  the  isle  of  Jersey;  and  Jan  GriflSer  (1645-17 18)  who  painted 
mixed  scenes  of  river  and  rich  country  in  the  manner  of  Ruysdael,  and  who 
was  so  much  of  an  enthusiast  that  he  bought  a  yacht  and,  "embarking  with 
his  family  and  pencils  passed  his  whole  time  on  the  Thames." 

1  Streater's  "Boscobel  House,"  one  of  the  pictures  in  James  II's  col- 
lection, is  at  Hampton  Court.  At  Dulwich  a  picture  described  in  Cartwright's 
catalogue  as  "A  large  Landschift  done  by  Streeker"  is  now  ascribed  to 
Streater. 

2  Francis  Place  is  noteworthy  as  one  of  the  first  Englishmen,  if  not  the 
very  first,  to  practice  the  newly  discovered  art  of  mezzotint  engraving  (M.  C. 
Salamon,  "The  Old  Engravers  of  England,"  pp.  52,  66). 


286  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

beach.  But  with  these  unimportant  exceptions  the  painters 
of  landscape  in  England  before  1707  were  foreigners.  And 
of  the  foreign  artists  only  the  Van  de  Veldes,  father  and  son, 
achieved  more  than  local  and  temporary  fame.  Willem 
Van  de  Velde  the  Elder  (1610-93)  was  already  a  famous 
painter  of  sea-pieces  when  Charles  II  called  him  to  England 
in  1675.  At  Hampton  Court  may  still  be  seen  many  of  his 
huge  canvases,  chiefly  important  as  pictorial  chronicles  of 
English  naval  achievement,  but  showing  also  effective  use 
of  sea  and  sky.  The  eighteenth-century  estimate  of  Willem 
Van  de  Velde  the  Younger  (1633-1707)  is  expressed  inWal- 
pole's  dictum,  "Pre-eminence  is  no  more  to  be  contested 
with  Raphael  for  history  than  with  Van  de  Velde  for  sea- 
pieces,"  and  he  still  ranks  as  one  of  the  great  marine  painters. 
English  galleries,  both  public  and  private,  are  rich  in  beau- 
tiful examples  of  his  work.^  No  other  name  so  illustrious 
occurs  in  Walpole's  annals  of  this  period.  Of  the  other 
foreign  painters  it  is  sufficient  to  say  that  they  were  men  whose 
habits  of  thought,  whose  tastes,  as  well  as  their  technique,  had 
been  established  in  Holland,  Flanders,  or  Italy,  and  who  did 
their  mature  work  in  England  because  the  desire  of  Charles 
II  to  revive  the  art  activities  fostered  by  his  father  seemed  to 
offer  a  good  professional  opening.  The  fact  that  they  painted 
in  England  had  hardly  more  influence  on  the  course  of  Eng- 
lish art  than  would  have  been  exerted  by  the  importation  of 
their  pictures.  They  founded  no  schools,  they  excited  little 
emulation  or  even  imitation.  They  were  merely  second- 
er third-rate  workmen  who  painted  along  in  a  manner 
studiously  reminiscent  of  their  earlier  masters.  Such  slight 
effect  as  their  work  had  in  developing  the  love  of  Nature 

I  There  are  fourteen  sea-pieces  by  him  in  the  National  Gallery;  eight 
in  the  Wallace  collection  at  Hertford  House;  and  several  at  Hampton  Court. 
At  Duhvich  are  two  pictures  by  him,  "A  Calm"  and  "A  Brisk  Breeze"  that 
are  especially  attractive  examples  of  his  style. 


<5 


LANDSCAPE  PAINTING  287 

in  England  came  from  the  fact  that  Enghshmen  at  last  saw 
depicted  some  of  the  wild  or  romantic  scenes  of  their  own 
country,  scenes  from  Scotland  and  the  Isle  of  Jersey,  from 
the  neighborhood  of  Derbyshire  Peak,  from  along  the 
banks  of  the  Thames.  But  such  slight  influence  as  this 
attention  to  local  scenery  might  have  had,  was,  it  must  be 
insisted,  nearly  neutralized  by  the  fact  that  these  represen- 
tations of  English  scenery  were  always  so  "touched  up"  in 
the  style  of  some  Dutch  or  Italian  master  as  to  be  practically 
unrecognizable.  Instead  of  observing  Nature  the  artists 
"composed"  pictures,  using  elements  conventionally  accepted 
as  picturesque.  They  trained  themselves  to  see  England 
through  the  eyes  of  Salvator  Rosa  or  Ruysdael  or  Claude 
Lorraine  or  the  Poussins. 

The  second  period  of  landscape  art  in  England  comprises 
the  forty-eight  years  between  the  death  of  the  younger  Van  de 
Velde  (1707)  and  the  return  of  Richard  Wilson  from  Italy 
in  1755.  In  studying  this  period  a  convenient  point  of  depar- 
ture is  given  by  M.  Rouquet's  "L'etat  des  arts  en  Angleterre," 
published  in  1755.  His  only  reference  to  landscape  art  is  in 
the  following  interesting  but  rather  vague  paragraph: 

Rien  n'est  si  riant  que  les  campagnes  de  ce  pays-la,  plus  d'un 
Peintre  y  fait  un  usage  heureux  des  aspects  charmans  qui  s'y  presentent 
de  toutes  parts:  les  tableaux  de  paysage  y  sont  fort  a  la  mode,  ce  genre 
y  est  cultive  avec  autant  de  succes  qu'aucun  autre.  II  y  a  peu  de 
maitres  dans  ce  talent  qui  ayent  ete  beaucoup  superieurs  aux  Peintres 
de  paysage  qui  jouissent  aujourd'hui  en  Angleterre  de  la  premiere 
reputation.^ 

M.  Rouquet's  words  seem  to  imply  a  much  larger  amount 
of  successful  and  popular  landscape  work  than  extant  pic- 
tures or  the  meager  annals  of  the  time  would  indicate.  Pos- 
sibly in  the  landscapes  that  were  "fort  a  la  mode"  were 

I  M.  Rouquet  was  a  French  enamel  painter  who  came  to  England  in 
1725- 


288  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

included  important  Italian  works,  or  the  works  of  foreigners 
painting  in  England.  There  must  have  been,  also,  more 
landscape  production  than  is  in  any  way  recorded,  so  that 
M.  Rouquet  doubtless  had  knowledge  of  pictures  now  prac- 
tically non-existent.  And  even  the  following  summary  of 
such  names  and  works  as  have  survived  a  century  and  a  half 
will  give  his  words  a  modified  justification. 

Peter  Monamy  (i 670-1 749)  was  a  marine  painter  of  the 
school  of  the  younger  Van  de  Velde.  "The  Old  East  India 
Wharf  at  London  Bridge,"  a  large  and  interesting  canvas 
at  the  South  Kensington  Gallery,  and  "The  Calm,"  a  small 
but  very  attractive  picture  at  Dulwich,  go  far  toward  the 
maintenance  of  his  great  contemporary  reputation.  A  second 
marine  painter  of  much  promise  was  Charles  Brooking 
(1723-59).  Of  the  few  pictures  by  him  in  London  galleries 
the  most  delightful  is  "The  Calm,"  a  picture  recently  added 
to  the  National  Gallery.  A  series  of  his  naval  reviews  was 
reproduced  by  Boydell  in  1753,  and  other  works  were 
engraved  by  Canot  and  Ravenet.  Samuel  Scott  (1710-72), 
after  Van  de  Velde  the  most  important  marine  painter  of 
the  century,  did  some  of  his  fine  views  of  the  Thames  and  old 
London  bridges  as  early  as  1745.  Excellent  examples  of  his 
work  are  in  the  National  Gallery  and  at  South  Kensington. 

There  were  also  during  this  period  several  men  whose 
chief  pictures  were  of  animals,  but  with  considerable  inciden- 
tal use  of  landscape.  James  Seymour  (1702-52),  known  as  a 
portrait  painter  of  fine  horses,  also  painted  many  hunting- 
scenes  where  horses  and  dogs  are  trooping  at  full  speed 
through  broken  country.  Contemporary  with  Seymour  was 
John  Wootton  (d.  1765)  the  excellence  of  whose  representa- 
tions of  animals  is  well  shown  by  his  illustrations  of  Gay's 
"Fables"  in  1731.  Wootton  was  also  painting  landscapes 
in  the  Italian  manner  before  1751.     George  Stubbs  (1724- 


u 

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o 

r 

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S 

o 

O 

r 

^ 

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2: 

=Q 

LANDSCAPE  PAINTING  289 

1806)  began  his  work  as  an  animal  painter  before  the  middle 
of  the  century.  In  1740  he  broke  away  from  conventions 
by  resolving  never  to  copy  any  picture  but  "to  look  into 
Nature  for  himself  and  consult  and  study  her  only."  This 
sturdy  independence  ripened  in  1754  into  a  determination 
to  visit  Italy  in  order  to  test  his  opinion  that  "Nature  is 
superior  to  all  Art,"  a  dictum  worthy  of  note  so  early  in  the 
century. 

Landscape  painting  specifically  so  called  begins  with  the 
topographical  draughtsmen  of  the  early  eighteenth  century. 
If  a  draughtsman  had  any  susceptibility  to  the  beauties  of 
Nature  his  sketch  almost  insensibly  took  on  various  adjuncts 
from  the  scenes  about  him  till  his  work  gradually  merged 
into  landscape  painting  for  its  own  sake.  One  of  the  earliest 
topographers  was  Samuel  Buck  (1696-17 79)  who,  with  his 
brother  Nathanael,  brought  out  over  five  hundred  views 
between  1723  and  1753.^  Their  work,  stiff  and  crude  as  it 
is,  did  not  confine  itself  to  buildings  or  bird's-eye  views  but 
shows  some  attempts  at  adornment  by  the  introduction  of 
sky  and  foliage.  William  Taverner  (1703-72),  another 
early  topographer  and  landscape  painter  as  well,  is  rep- 
resented in  South  Kensington  by  one  sepia  drawing  of  a 
path  by  a  river,  and  by  a  singularly  attractive  water-color 
landscape,  a  composition  in  the  Italian  style.  Mr.  Cosmo 
Monkhouse  refers  also  to  a  view  of  a  sand-pit  at  Woolwich, 
and  to  "an  extensive  and  beautiful  landscape"  (now  at 
Whitworth  Institute,  Manchester)  showing  the  view  from 
Richmond  Hill.  Taverner's  reputation  was  justly  high  in  his 
own  day.  Smollett  in  "Humphrey  CHnker"  makes  Matthew 
Bramble  say  of  Taverner  in  a  letter  to  Dr.  Lewis  (May  19), 

This  young  gentleman  of  Bath  is  the  best  landscape  painter  now 
living:    I  was  struck  with  his  performances  as  I  had  never  been  by 

I  Afterward  brought  together  in  Buck's  "Antiquities,"  published  in  1774. 


290  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

painting  before.  His  trees  not  only  have  a  richness  of  foHage,  and 
warmth  of  colouring  which  dehght  the  view;  but  also  a  certain  magnifi- 
cence in  the  disposition  and  spirit  in  the  expression,  which  I  cannot 

describe If  there  is  any  taste  for  ingenuity  left  ....   this  artist, 

I  apprehend,  will  make  a  capital  figure,  as  soon  as  his  works  are  known.  ^ 

After  Taverner's  death  ''The  Gentleman's  Magazine"  for  1772 
reiterated  Smollett's  statement  but  in  a  stronger  form  calling 
Taverner  "one  of  the  best  landscape  painters  England  ever 
produced."  Mr.  Monkhouse  speaks  of  him  as  "the  artist 
who  could  most  justly  challenge  Paul  Sandby's  claim  to  the 
title  of  the  father  of  the  English  school  of  water-colours  in 
the  production  of  faithful  landscape."^  About  contem- 
porary with  Taverner  is  George  Lambert  (1710-65),  engrav- 
ings from  whose  landscapes  were  published  in  1749.  In 
the  Print  Room  of  the  British  Museum  his  work  is  repre- 
sented by  six  attractive  engravings,  and  there  is  a  fresh, 
modern  looking  painting  by  him  in  the  National  Gallery. ^ 
Lambert  chose  as  themes  mixed  country  of  slow  streams  or 
quiet  lakes,  with  bushy  shores;  low,  wooded  hills;  stretches 
of  arable  land  with  thatched  cottages  under  embowering  trees. 
In  most  of  his  pictures  the  rich,  peaceful  scene  is  enhvened 
by  the  presence  of  domestic  animals,  cows  standing  lazily 
in  pools,  sheep  huddling  along  the  road,  horses  coming  heav- 
ily home  from  the  day's  work.  There  are  also  men,  women, 
and  children  engaged  in  various  country  sports  or  occupations. 
George  Lambert  is  one  of  the  first  English  artists  to  attempt 
what  may  be  called  domestic  landscape.  Contemporary 
with  Lambert  is  Thomas  Smith  (d.  1767),  known  as  "Smith 
of  Derby"  from  the  town  where  he  chiefly  resided.     His 

•  "Humphrey  Clinker"  was  published  in  177 1  and  the  supposed  time  of 
Matthew  Bramble's  visit  to  Bath  is  not  much  earlier.  Taverner  was  sixty- 
eight  in  1771. 

a  Cosmo  Monkhouse,  "The  Earlier  English  Water-Colour  Painters." 

3  Bequeathed  by  Miss  Haines  in  1898. 


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LANDSCAPE  PAINTING  291 

"Views  of  Chatsworth"  are  dated  1744,  and  Vivares  engraved 
some  of  his  views  of  Derbyshire  in  1745.  A  print  from  his 
"View  of  Dunnington  CHff,"  dated  1745,  shows  a  river 
winding  in  tortuous  fashion  into  the  remote  distance,  with 
wooded  hills  on  one  side,  balanced  on  the  other  by  meadows 
stretching  away  to  a  low  hill  crowned  with  a  little  church. 
The  foreground  shows  scraggly  trees,  a  waterfall,  a  lock,  cattle 
grazing,  and  figures  variously  occupied.  The  crowded  canvas 
lacks  unity  of  impression  and  is  thoroughly  conventional  in 
arrangement,  but  the  details  are  English  and  are  painted 
with  manifest  appreciation  and  a  very  evident  attempt  at 
fidelity.  George  Smith  (1714-76),  or  "  Smith  of  Chichester," 
belongs  in  time  with  Lambert  and  Thomas  Smith.  He  and 
his  brothers  were  the  first  to  establish  a  local  school  of  land- 
scape art.  In  1760  he  was  awarded  a  premium  of  fifty 
pounds  for  "A  Landskip,  half-length,"  the  first  premium 
given  by  the  "Society  of  Arts"  for  landscape  work,  but  he 
had  done  considerable  Claudesque  painting  before  this 
time.  In  spite  of  his  imitative  manner  his  themes  are  the 
lovely  scenes  about  Chichester,  and  he  painted  them  with 
genuine  affection.  A  pleasing  example  of  his  Italian  style  is 
in  the  South  Kensington  Gallery.  A  dark  line  of  foreground 
with  tufted  brownish  trees  on  each  side  frames  in  a  still  lake; 
a  fine  effect  of  distance  is  given  by  misty  blue  hills  beyond 
the  lake;  and  sunset  effects — a  tender  blue  sky  with  grayish 
little  clouds  softly  brightened  by  yellow  light  from  the  diffused 
golden  glow  along  the  horizon — are  delicately  repeated  in 
the  mirror-like  water.  Another  early  artist  of  whom  little 
seems  to  be  known  is  William  Bellers.  ^  Numerous  engravings 
by  Mason  from  landscapes  "  Painted  after  Nature  by  William 
Bellers"  occur  from  1752  to  1759.  He  was  a  Cumberland 
man  and  nearly  all  of  his  pictures  are  of  scenes  in  that  county 

I  See  Print  Room,  British  Museum,  for  prints  from  his  paintings. 


292        NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

and  in  Westmoreland.  As  art  his  work  cannot  rank  high, 
but  not  even  his  fluffy  hills,  tossed  together  without  a  sug- 
gestion of  rock  foundation,  nor  his  lack  of  aerial  perspective, 
can  obscure  the  delight  with  which  he  painted  the  picturesque 
scenery  of  his  native  regions.  Bellers  was  apparently  the  first 
one  of  the  long  line  of  Lake  Country  artists  and  his  pictures 
antedate  by  some  years  the  known  descriptions  in  poetry, 
travels,  and  fiction.  Thomas  Smith  also  painted  in  West- 
moreland and  other  northern  counties  but  there  is  no  means 
of  determining  whether  his  pictures  are  earlier  or  later  than 
those  of  Bellers.  Alexander  Cozens  (d.  1786),  was  sent  to 
study  art  in  Italy.  He  returned  to  England  in  1746  and 
exhibited  from  1760  to  1781.  There  are  at  South  Kensing- 
ton several  examples  of  his  work,  especially  two  interesting 
mountain  landscapes.  In  the  British  Museum  are  fifty-four 
drawings  which  belong  to  his  Italian  period.  Some  of  these 
are  extensive  views.  Some  of  them  show  interesting  experi- 
ments such  as  the  attempt  to  represent  sunlight  streaming 
through  clouds.  "Altogether,"  says  Mr.  Monkhouse,  "these 
show  that  Cozens  before  his  arrival  in  England,  was  a  well- 
trained  artist  who  observed  Nature  for  himself,  and  was  not 
without  poetical  skill"  and  Mr.  Monkhouse  finds  in  the 
"imagination,  ingenuity,  and  trained  skill"  of  the  father 
adequate  explanation  of  his  son,  John  Robert  Cozens,  whose 
work  will  be  noted  in  the  next  section.^  The  work  of  Alex- 
ander Cozens  was  particularly  that  of  teaching  art.''      John 

1  Cosmo  Monkhouse,  "  The  Earlier  English  Water-Colour  Painters," 
PP-  35.  36. 

2  Cozens  had  a  curious  way  of  getting  hints  for  landscape  composition. 
He  taught  his  pupils  to  splash  paint  on  the  bottoms  of  earthenware  plates 
and  to  stamp  impressions  therefrom  on  sheets  of  damp  paper.  The  accident- 
al forms  thus  struck  out  were  counted  a  help  to  invention.  The  early 
exhibitions  record  many  bizarre  attempts  at  landscapes  such  as  "A  land- 
scape done  in  needlework  and  human  hair"  (1772),  "three  drawings  made 


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LANDSCAPE  PAINTING  293 

Boydell  (17 19-1804),  better  known  as  a  publisher  of  prints 
than  as  an  original  artist,  yet  did  some  interesting  early  work. 
In  1736  his  interest  in  scenery  was  aroused  by  "a  book  of 
well-executed  landscape  engravings."  In  1745  he  brought 
out  a  series  of  "landscapes  for  learners"  the  tremendous 
success  of  which  laid  the  foundation  of  his  great  fortune,  and 
throughout  his  life  his  activities  as  publisher  were  largely 
affected  by  his  love  of  scenery.  He  was  the  first  artist  to 
paint  in  Wales.  A  large  print  done  by  him  from  one  of  his 
own  pictures  and  bearing  the  date  1750  is  an  attempt  to 
represent  Mount  Snowdon.  Paul  Sand  by  (i  725-1809)  is 
of  more  importance  in  the  histoiy  of  landscape  art  than  any 
of  the  men  already  mentioned,  but  most  of  his  work  belongs 
after  1755.  His  sketches  in  the  Highlands,  whither  he  went 
as  draughtsman  on  a  road  survey,  were,  however,  made  during 
the  years  1746-51^  and  his  exquisite  aquatint  studies  of  the 
country  about  Windsor  belong  about  1751-52  when  he  was 
with  his  brother  Thomas  at  the  deputy  ranger's  lodge  at 
Windsor. 

That  early  landscape  painting  was  not  confined  to  England 
may  be  shown  by  reference  to  some  Scotch  and  Irish  artists. 
Alexander  Runciman  (1736-85)  was  born  in  Edinburgh. 
He  began  to  paint  landscapes  before  he  was  twelve.  "  Fur- 
nished with  pencils,  and  brushes,  and  colours,  he  took  to  the 
fields;  his  first  sketches  were  rocks,  trees,  and  waterfalls." 
At  fourteen  he  was  placed  in  the  studio  of  John  and  Robert 
Norris  where  he  showed  himself  "one  of  the  wildest  enthu- 

upon  a  board  with  a  hot  iron"  (1777),  "flowers  cut  in  cork,"  "three  small 
landscapes  made  in  oil  with  Trees  and  Shrubs  in  sea-weed"  (1780).  These 
were  apparently  exhibited  in  all  seriousness.  In  1770  there  was  "A  land- 
scape in  colored  wax." 

I  In  the  Print  Room  of  the  British  Museum  are  sixty-eight  small  sketches 
made  by  Paul  Sandby  in  the  neighborhood  of  Edinburgh,  but  most  of  these 
are  of  figures. 


294  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

siasts  that  ever  devoted  themselves  to  the  art."  "Other 
artists,"  it  was  said,  "talked  meat  and  drink,  but  Runciman 
talked  landscape."  By  1755  Runciman  set  up  as  landscape 
painter  on  his  own  account,  but  he  speedily  learned  that 
though  landscape  might  bring  applause  it  was  not  an  art 
whereby  even  a  moderate  livelihood  could  be  obtained  and 
by  1760  the  young  painter  had  turned  to  other  realms.' 
John  Norris,  of  whom  little  is  known  except  that  he  was 
Runciman's  teacher,  was  nevertheless  in  his  day  reckoned 
"a  celebrated  landscape  painter."  Brydall  says  that  he 
was  "probably  the  first  to  create,  or  at  least  to  minister  to 
the  taste  for  landscape  in  the  Scottish  metropolis."^  In 
Ireland  was  an  obscure  artist  named  Rogers  who  has  been 
called  "the  father  of  landscape  art"  in  that  country.  His 
pupil.  Butts  (d.  1764),  painted  early  landscapes  said  to  be 
"  impressive  copies  of  the  wild  scenes  which  abound  in  the 
county  of  Cork,  and  the  romantic  views  that  abound  on  the 
margin  of  Black  Water." 

From  this  catalogue  of  names  and  dates  several  facts 
emerge.  In  the  first  place,  nearly  all  the  landscape  work 
mentioned  belongs  after  1740.  From  1707  to  about  1740 
English  landscape  art  can  hardly  be  said  to  exist  at  all. 
Even  the  foreign  artists  so  much  in  evidence  in  the  preceding 
period  are  no  longer  to  be  found  in  England. ^  George  II 
frankly  hated  "boetry  and  bainting"  and  the  reigns  before 

1  Allan  Cunningham,  "The  Lives  of  the  Most  Eminent  British  Painters" 
(1879),  II,  210. 

2  Btydall,  "Art  in  Scotland." 

3  Zucarelli  (1701-88)  on  a  first  visit  to  London  painted  some  landscapes 
but  he  was  chiefly  occupied  as  scene  painter  at  the  opera.  The  great  vogue 
of  his  pictures  belongs  in  his  second  visit  (1752-73).  Jan  Griffier's  sons 
should  perhaps  be  mentioned.  Jan  (d.  1750)  was  especially  noted  as  a 
copier  of  Claude's  pictures.  Robert,  who  painted  in  his  father's  style,  died 
in  1760. 


LANDSCAPE  PAINTING  295 

him  were  hardly  more  hospitably  inclined  to  aesthetic  claims 
outside  the  realms  of  portraiture  and  history  painting. 
This  lack  of  royal  patronage  would  sufficiently  account  for  the 
dearth  of  foreign  painters,  and  perhaps,  also,  for  the  lack  of 
Enghsh  landscape  painters.  All  native  art-impulse  would 
likewise  feel  the  inevitably  deadening  effect  of  the  universal 
and  rigid  acceptance  of  foreign  canons  of  art.  But  what- 
ever the  cause,  the  fact  remains  that  most  of  the  English 
landscapes  M.  Rouquet  speaks  so  enthusiastically  of  in  1755 
must  have  been  painted  in  the  preceding  fifteen  years. 

In  the  second  place,  the  landscape  art,  though  technically 
not  of  high  rank,  is  yet,  by  its  amount,  the  range  of  its  themes, 
and  its  suggestions  of  a  new  personal  feeling  toward  the  ex- 
ternal world,  an  important  contribution  to  the  growing  love  of 
Nature.  The  output  of  the  years  1740-55  is  really  surpris- 
ingly large  and  correspondingly  varied  in  theme.  There  are 
three  artists  who  paint  successful  marines,  and  three  whose 
studies  of  animal  life  take  good  rank.  In  landscapes  we  find 
much  emphasis  on  the  pastoral  beauty  of  England,  its  hills, 
streams,  lakes,  woods,  meadows,  and  thatched  cottages. 
Wilder  scenery  is  also  portrayed,  for  by  the  middle  of  the 
century  the  Highlands  of  Scotland,  Derbyshire  and  Yorkshire, 
the  Lake  District,  and  Wales,  have  all  received  recognition  as 
true  subjects  for  landscape  art.  And  there  is,  in  the  case  of 
every  artist,  even  of  those  who  feel  most  strongly  the  domi- 
nance of  foreign  masters,  a  very  evident  study  of  the  details 
of  English  landscapes  and  an  eagerness  to  record  in  painting 
the  charms  felt  by  the  artist.  It  should  also  be  noted  that, 
though  nearly  all  the  more  important  pictures  were  the  work 
of  English  artists,  yet  native  artists  began  to  paint  scenery  at 
about  the  same  time  in  England,  Scotland,  and  Ireland. 

The  period  from  1755  to  1800  is  throughout  rich  in  land- 
scape production,  but  the  thirty  years  between  1755  and  1785 


296  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

is  the  most  significant  portion  of  the  period.  These  are  the 
years  during  which  landscape  art  was  established  in  England 
and  during  which  it  won  the  greatest  laurels  it  was  to  have 
before  the  great  days  of  the  early  nineteenth  century.  The 
two  famous  artists  of  this  notable  thirty  years  were  Wilson 
and  Gainsborough  and  it  will  simplify  the  account  if  we 
take  up  their  work  before  that  of  their  lesser  contempo- 
raries. 

Richard  Wilson  (1714-82)  was  born  at  Penegoes  near 
Machynlleth,  Montgomeryshire,  Wales,  but  while  still  a 
child,  his  father,  the  Rev.  John  Wilson,  went  to  live  at  Mold, 
Flintshire,  and  there  the  lad  was  brought  up.  Talent  of 
some  sort  as  an  artist  he  early  evinced  and  at  fifteen  he  was 
sent  to  London  to  study  portrait  painting,  a  profession  at 
which  he  worked  steadily  for  twenty-one  years,  and  by  which 
he  apparently  made  a  fair  income  though  his  portraits  never 
rose  much  above  mediocrity.^  At  thirty-six  he  went  to  Italy 
for  further  study.  During  his  six  years  there  he  devoted 
himself  exclusively  to  landscape.  He  remained  in  Venice 
a  year;  with  William  Lock  he  made  a  slow  tour  from  Venice 
to  Rome;  with  Lord  Dartmouth  he  went  to  Naples;  from 
Rome  as  his  headquarters  he  made  many  excursions  into  the 
surrounding  regions;    and  throughout  all  these  travels  he 

I  There  is  in  the  National  Portrait  Gallery,  one  of  the  more  important 
of  Wilson's  portraits  before  his  Italian  visit,  entitled,  "The  Two  Princes  and 
their  Tutor,"  a  stiff,  formal,  but  not  uninteresting  picture.  The  most 
admirable  portrait  by  Wilson,  that  of  the  artist  Mortimer,  deserves  the  high 
praise  it  has  won  from  competent  critics,  and  shows  what  Wilson  could  do 
with  a  congenial  subject  and  after  the  enfranchisement  of  his  art  by  his  work 
as  a  landscape  painter.  Except  for  a  portrait  of  himself  this  portrait  of 
Mortimer  is  the  only  one  done  by  him  after  his  return  from  Italy.  It  came 
into  the  possession  of  Mr.  John  Britton  who,  in  1842,  wrote  a  pamphlet  about 
it  and  the  paintings  and  merits  of  Wilson  in  general  (Cunningham's  "British 
Painters,"  I,  153).  The  portrait  of  Mortimer  is  now  in  the  Gibson  Gallery 
of  the  Royal  Academy,  London.  Reproduced  in  Beaumont  Fletcher's 
"Richard  Wilson." 


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LANDSCAPE  PAINTING  297 

was  tireless  in  the  production  of  studies,  sketches,  pictures. 
Through  the  generous  praise  of  recognized  authorities  such 
as  Zucarelli,  Mengs,  and  Vernet,  a  report  of  his  surprising 
achievements  reached  England,  and  when  he  returned  to 
London  in  1755  it  was  to  find  his  reputation  practically 
established.  His  solemn  style  did  not,  however,  at  once 
commend  itself  to  the  artists  of  his  time.  Wright  says  that 
his  return  excited  "some  interest  and  much  criticism  in  the 
coteries  of  art,"  and  that  certain  artists  "who  then  constituted 
themselves,  what  they  called  A  Committee  of  Taste,  and  led 
the  understanding  of  the  public  in  art"  sat  in  judgment  on 
Wilson's  work  and  resolved  "That  the  manner  of  Mr.  Wilson 
was  not  suited  to  the  English,  and  that  if  he  hoped  for  patron- 
age he  must  change  it  for  the  lighter  style  of  Zucarelli." 
When  this  committee  waited  on  Wilson  it  was  met  with  cool 
contempt,^  and  he  painted  on  in  his  own  fashion.  But  the 
committee's  estimate  of  patronage  was  apparently  correct,  for 
during  the  lifetime  of  the  artist,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  during 
a  period  of  twenty-five  years  he  assiduously  painted  landscapes, 
he  did  not  achieve  an  even  moderately  comfortable  livelihood. 
His  life  was  one  of  sordid  financial  shifts  and  of  growing 
bitterness  of  spirit,  until,  in  1780,  through  a  small  inherit- 
ance, he  was  enabled  to  retire  to  a  little  patrimony  in  Wales, 
where,  broken  and  enfeebled,  he  spent  the  two  years  before 
his  death. 

Wilson's  work  as  a  landscape  painter  began  certainly  as 
early  as  1750  in  Italy,  and  all  probabilities  are  in  favor  of 
the  supposition  that  it  began  earlier  in  England.  To  be 
sure,  no  juvenile  sketches,  no  anecdotes  of  youthful  tenden- 
cies, remain  to  substantiate  this  conjecture.  Even  the  "View 
of  Dover,"  the  one  landscape  known  to  have  been  painted 
before  the  Italian  visit,  is  no  longer  in  existence.     But  the 

I  T.  Wright,  "The  Life  of  Richard  Wilson,  R.A.,"  p.  72. 


298  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

fact  that  this  picture  was  at  once  engraved  by  J.  S.  Miller 
would  seem  to  indicate  that  it  was  counted  a  work  of  some 
importance.  Furthermore,  when  Wilson  began  his  work 
in  Italy  there  was  no  apprentice  period.  Work  done  in  the 
early  years  there  shows  a  management  of  landscape  detail 
and  composition  quite  equal  to  that  of  his  later  work,  and 
such  as  would  not  be  prepared  for  by  the  most  zealous  study 
in  portraiture.  It  is,  indeed,  hardly  believable  that  a  pro- 
nounced passion  for  landscape  such  as  characterized  Wilson 
should  never  have  tempted  his  brush  till  he  was  thirty-six, 
and  should  then,  at  the  chance  words  of  a  fellow-artist  sud- 
denly open  out  before  him  as  his  life-work.  Edwards 
Edwardes  is  responsible  for  the  anecdote  that  attributes  Wil- 
son's change  from  portraiture  to  landscape  to  the  advice  of 
Zucarelli.  But  we  have,  on  the  other  hand,  the  more  prob- 
able account  given  by  Mr.  Hastings  in  a  volume  of  etchings 
made  by  him  from  the  Ford  collection  of  Wilson's  paintings. 

Mr.  Hastings  gives  Mr.  R s  (probably  Mr.  Samuel  PvOgers, 

the  author  of  "Italy"  and  an  art  connoisseur)  as  authority  for 
the  statement  that  an  influential  patron  of  the  arts,  Mr. 
William  Lock  of  Norbury,  perceived  Wilson's  bent  toward 
landscape  of  the  grand  sort,  and  urged  him  to  go  to  Italy  as 
the  best  place  to  perfect  himself  in  that  art.  Mr.  Beau- 
mont Fletcher,  Wilson's  latest  biographer,  considers  that 
the  artist  was  fully  conscious  of  his  powers  as  a  land- 
scape painter,  and  that  his  visit  to  Rome  was  premedi- 
tated for  the  purpose  of  study  in  that  particular  line.^  Sir 
Walter  Armstrong  also  maintains  the  probability,  almost 
certainty,  of  landscape  work  by  Wilson  prior  to  the  Italian 
tour.^ 

1  Beaumont  Fletcher,  "Richard  Wilson,  R.A.,"  p.  90. 

2  Sir  Walter  Armstrong,  "Gainsborough  and  His  Place  in  English  Art," 
p.  63. 


LANDSCAPE  PAINTING  299 

The  landscapes  painted  by  Wilson  between  1755  and 
1760,  the  date  of  the  first  public  exhibition  of  pictures'  in 
England,  cannot  be  absolutely  identified,  but  he  was  prob- 
ably spending  much  of  his  time  in  painting  from  the  sketches 
made  in  Italy.  In  the  exhibition  of  1760  was  his  "Niobe." 
In  the  same  year  he  painted  an  upright  picture  of  the  Arno 
for  the  drawing-room  mantel-piece  of  a  patron  in  Piatt  Hall, 
Manchester.  In  1761  were  exhibited  "The  Lake  of  Nemi" 
and  other  Italian  pictures.  The  "Phaeton"  appeared  in 
1763,  the  "L'Anconetta"  in  1764,  the  "Villa  Madama"  in 
1765,  and  many  other  Italian  pictures  in  these  and  successive 
years.  By  1768  he  had  exhibited  about  thirty  landscapes 
nearly  all  of  which  were  based  on  his  Italian  sketches,  and 
it  was  his  custom  through  his  life  to  paint  pictures  the  chief 
elements  of  which  were  the  sunny  skies  and  ruined  temples 
of  classic  regions. 

A  recognition  of  the  great  influence  of  Italy  over  Wil- 
son's mind  and  art  should  not,  however,  be  allowed  to  obscure 
the  fact  that  he  gave  equally  sympathetic  response  to  the  scenes 
of  his  own  land.  When  Stothard  was  a  student  at  the  Royal 
Academy  he  asked  Wilson  to  suggest  to  him  something  to 
copy,  and  Wilson,  who  happened  to  be  looking  out  over  the 
Thames,  responded  that  there  could  not  well  be  anything 
better  to  copy  than  that.  That  he  loved  English  scenery 
becomes  apparent  when  we  study  such  pictures  as  the  lovely 
"  English  Landscape"^  in  the  possession  of  the  Rev.  Stop  ford 
Brooke,  the  "River  Scene  with  Castle"  in  the  South  Kensing- 
ton Gallery,  the  "View  on  the  Wye"  ^  in  the  National  Gallery, 
the  "De  Tabley  House"  in  the  possession  of  A.  T.  Hollings- 

1  In  1755  there  had  been  an  exhibition  started  by  Hogarth  for  the  benefit 
of  the  Foundling  Hospital.  It  was  the  success  of  this  enterprise  that  led  to 
the  establishment  of  public  exhibitions  in  1760. 

2  Reproduced  in  Beaumont  Fletcher's  "Richard  Wilson,  R.A." 


300  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

worth, ^  "Wilton  in  Wiltshire,"^  "View  in  Kew  Gardens,"^ 
"Sion  House,"  and  "A  View  near  Chester."  The  dates  of 
these  EngHsh  pictures  can  seldom  be  determined,  but  it  is 
evident  that  he  made  occasional  sketching  tours,  for  the  exhi- 
bitions record  views  in  Bedfordshire,  Devonshire,  and  Chesh- 
ire, besides  those  of  places  in  the  immediate  neighborhood 
of  London  such  as  St.  James'  Park,  Windsor  Great  Park, 
Kew  Gardens,  and  Hounslow  Heath. 

But  none  of  these  English  pictures,  and  few  even  of  his 
Italian  ones,  can  compare  in  dignity  and  beauty  with  his 
notable  Welsh  views.  He  certainly  visited  Wales  before 
1766  for  in  that  year  he  exhibited  two  views  from  North 
Wales,  "Carnar\'on  Castle"  and  "Northwest  View  of  Snow- 
don."  It  seems  very  likely  that  when  he  was  painting  at 
Manchester  and  Chester  in  1760  he  took  the  opportunity 
to  visit  his  old  home,  but  there  are  no  dated  W^elsh  pic- 
tures before  1766.  But  even  this  date  gives  him  no  predeces- 
sors among  artists  painting  in  Wales  except  men  so  inferior 
as  John  Boydell  and  Anthony  Devis.  Other  Welsh  pictures 
were  exhibited  by  Wilson  in  1771  and  1774.  In  1775  Boydell 
published  "Six  Views  in  Wales,"  engravings  by  Byrne  and 
Rooker  from  Wilson's  pictures.  Britton  in  his  "Fine  Arts  in 
England"  (1805)  said  that  "Wilson's  'Six  Views'  were  the 
most  important  topographical  views  ever  published  in  Eng- 
land." But  they  only  partially  represent  the  great  amount 
of  work  done  by  Wilson  on  Welsh  subjects.  In  the  Print 
Room  of  the  British  Museum  are  engravings  from  many 
other  fine  Welsh  pictures  such  as  "The  Great  Bridge  over 
theTaafe,"  engraved  by  Canot,  "Kilgarren  Castle,"  engraved 
by    Elliott,    "Pembroke    Castle"    by   Mason,    "Carnarvon 

»  Reproduced  in  "Magazine  of  Fine  Arts,"  November,  1805. 

2  Engraved  by  W.  Watts  in  1786.     Print  Room  of  British  Museum. 

3  Engraved  by  W.  Birch  in  1779.     Print  Room  of  British  Museum. 


LANDSCAPE  PAINTING  3^1 

Castle"  by  Byrne,  "Snowdon  Hill"  by  Woollett,  "The  Sum- 
mit of  Cader  Idris"  by  E.  and  M.  Rooker.  Even  in  the 
engravings  these  are  pictures  of  very  great  nobility  and  charm. 
One  original  "Snowdon"  picture  is  in  the  Manchester  Art 
Gallery.  It  is  called  "A  Welsh  Valley  with  Snowdon  Hill" 
and  is  of  the  rarest  beauty.  The  rough  foreground  slopes, 
the  distant  mountain  bathed  in  light  and  delicately  outlined 
against  the  softest  of  skies,  the  mists  rising  from  the  hidden 
valleys,  are  magically  combined  into  a  picture  adequate  in 
its  presentation  of  the  facts  of  Nature,  and  having,  also,  a 
strong  poetic  and  imaginative  appeal.  A  beautiful  print 
after  Wilson  in  the  British  Museum  is  another,  "Snowdon 
Hill,"  by  Woollett.  The  loneliness,  the  serenity,  the  majesty, 
and  the  beauty  of  mountain  regions  are  portrayed  by  Wilson 
with  an  essentially  modern  feeling. 

It  was  many  years  before  any  other  artist  so  well  illustrated 
Blake's  phrase,  "  Great  things  are  done  when  men  and  moun- 
tains meet," '  as  did  Wilson.  For  fifteen  impressionable  years 
he  had  lived  in  North  Wales  and  his  mind  and  heart  had  been 
insensibly  affected  by  the  sublimity  of  mountain  scenes. 
Wales  had  given  as  important  and  effective  tutelage  to  him 
as  did  the  Lake  District  to  the  youthful  Wordsworth  sixty 
years  later.  Wilson  is  reported  to  have  said  that  Wales 
"afforded  every  requisite  for  a  landscape  painter"  but  we 
need  no  testimony  beyond  his  pictures  to  show  with  what 
power  these  rugged  cliffs  and  deep  ravines,  these  silent  lakes 
and  tarns,  these  tumultuous  streams  and  waterfalls,  these 
lonely  mountain  m.asses  towering  into  the  sky,  spoke  to  him 
both  as  an  artist  and  as  a  man  when,  in  mature  life  with 
mature  power,  he  returned  to  the  land  of  his  birth.  He 
painted  Welsh  scenes  with  boldness  and  freedom,  with  gran- 
deur, dignity,  and  impressiveness,  and  with  a  power  of  divina- 

I  Quoted  by  Beaumont  Fletcher  in  his  "Life  of  Wilson,"  p.  24. 


302  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

tion  that  must  put  him  high  in  the  ranks  of  painters  of  moun- 
tain scenery  in  any  age.' 

In  one  characteristic  Wilson's  Italian  and  Welsh  pictures 

I  There  are  several  landscapes  by  Wilson  in  the  public  galleries  of  Lon- 
don. Two  large  canvases  in  the  National  Gallery,  "The  Villa  of  Maecenas" 
and  "Niobe, "  were  painted  for  Sir  George  Beaumont  and  by  him  presented 
to  the  nation  in  1726.  They  are  heavy  and  dark  pictures  and  do  not  so 
satisfactorily  represent  Wilson's  genius  as  do  some  of  the  eight  smaller  land- 
scapes in  the  same  gallery,  notably  the  charming  little  picture  "On  the  River 
Wye."  In  the  South  Kensington  Galler)''  there  are  six  landscapes  by  Wilson 
with  several  others  "by  or  after"  him.  The  most  effective  of  these  is  a 
"Landscape  Composition"  in  the  Italian  style.  At  Dulwich  is  a  fine 
Italian  picture,  "The  Cascatella  and  Villa  of  Maecenas  near  Tivoli."  A 
more  nearly  adequate  idea  of  Wilson's  work  may  be  found  in  the  Manchester 
Art  Gallery  where,  besides  a  fine  example  of  his  Italian  pictures,  a  large  can- 
vas entitled  "Cicero's  Villa,"  are  one  of  Wilson's  most  triumphant  Welsh 
pictures,  the  "Welsh  Valley  with  Snowdon  Hill,"  and  a  magnificent  English 
scene,  a  "Landscape  with  Ruins."  The  Art  Gallery  at  Glasgow  has  one 
of  the  loveliest  and  most  mysteriously  suggestive  of  Wilson's  pictures,  called 
"The  Convent  Twilight;"  and  a  delicate  little  Scotch  landscape  (exhibited 
1762)  entitled  "View  of  Holt  Bridge  on  the  River  Dee."  It  is  apparent 
that  most  of  Wilson's  pictures  are  in  private  galleries.  In  1814  there  was 
an  exhibition  of  his  works  but  they  have  not  been  brought  together  in 
any  great  number  since.  Some  of  his  sketches  had  been  published  at  Oxford 
in  181 1  under  the  title  "Studies  and  Designs  by  Richard  Wilson,  done  at 
Rome  in  the  Year  1752."  In  1825  appeared  a  book  of  forty  etchings  made 
by  Mr.  Thomas  Hastings  after  the  pictures  in  the  Ford  collection,  a  notable 
collection  that  came  into  the  possession  of  Lady  Ford  through  her  brother 
and  her  husband  both  of  whom  had  been  admirers  of  Wilson's  work.  In  1863 
there  appeared  "Thirty-seven  Sketches  and  Designs  in  Crayon"  by  Richard 
Wilson,  R.A.  (London,  William  Tigg).  Probably  the  best  place  to  study 
Wilson's  pictures  as  a  whole  is  the  Print  Room  of  the  British  Museum  where 
there  are  forty-five  engravings  from  his  work,  several  of  these  engravings 
being  exceptionally  fine  reproductions.  Wilson  has  been  fortunate  in  the 
fact  that  his  landscapes  have  appealed  to  the  best  engravers  and  etchers. 
Besides  the  "Six  Views  in  Wales"  already  spoken  of  there  were  "Twelve 
Original  Views  in  Italy"  published  by  Boydell  in  1776,  and  very  many 
single  pictures  have  been  reproduced.  The  prices  brought  by  Wilson's 
pictures  have  been  in  modern  times  fairly  large.  In  1875  his  "View  on  the 
Arno"  brought  1,800  guineas.  "An  Evening  Scene  in  Wales"  brought 
380  guineas.  Some  of  the  engravings  also  bring  high  prices,  especially 
those  of  Woollett. 


LANDSCAPE  PAINTING  303 

are  alike.  He  was  temperamentally  susceptible  to  the  pathos 
of  ruins.  His  Italian  pictures  are  steeped  in  a  sense  of  in- 
escapable sadness.  Through  the  loveliness  of  Nature  runs 
the  mournful  memory  of  fallen  grandeur,  of  races  who  have 
lived  and  loved  and  are  no  more.  But  the  ruined  strongholds 
and  castles  of  his  own  land  touched  him  even  more  deeply. 
The  bright  stillness  of  Kilgarren  Castle  on  its  rocky  clifiF, 
mirrored  in  the  smooth  surface  of  the  river  below,  is  more 
beautiful  and  more  subtly  suggestive  of  "old,  unhappy,  far- 
off  things"  than  are  the  Italian  pictures. 

Through  all  Wilson's  pictures  we  feel,  furthermore,  a 
quality  of  genuineness  in  both  observation  and  feeling.  He 
studied  the  great  masters  of  landscape,  but  not  as  a  copyist. 
He  compared  their  work  with  Nature  which  he  studied  for 
himself.     Ruskin  says  of  him, 

Here,  at  last,  we  feel,  is  an  honest  Englishman,  who  has  got  away 
out  of  all  the  Camere,  and  the  Loggie^  and  the  Stanze,  and  the  schools, 
and  the  Disputas  ....  and  has  laid  himself  down  with  His  own 
poor  eyes  and  heart,  and  the  sun  casting  his  light  between  ruins — pos- 
sessor, he,  of  so  much  of  the  evidently  blessed  peace  of  things — he  and 
the  poor  lizard  in  the  cranny  of  the  stones  beside  him.^ 

Mr.  Beaumont  Fletcher  in  developing  this  conception  of 
Wilson  as  one  able  to  see  with  his  own  eyes,  very  justly  points 
out  that  his  idealism,  even  in  the  Italian  pictures,  is  based  on 
a  singularly  close  representation  of  the  facts  of  Nature. 
Even  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds  when  he  objects  to  Wilson's  use 
of  classical  figures  incidentally  testifies  to  the  truth  of  his 
landscapes  which  are,  says  Sir  Joshua,  "too  near  common 
nature  to  admit  the  supernatural."^ 

Wilson  has  been  called  "a  painter's  painter,"  and  various 
testimonies  show  how  deeply  impressed  later  distinguished 

I  John  Ruskin,  "The  Art  of  England,"  Lecture  VI,  "George  Robson 
and  Copley  Fielding." 

*  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds,  "The  Fourteenth  Discourse." 


304  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

artists  were  by  his  work.  Sir  James  D.  Linton'  points  out  that 
"  Turner  carried  Wilson's  methods  so  far  in  some  of  the  works 
of  his  early  middle  period  as  almost  to  amount  to  imitation," 
and  notes  a  picture  by  Turner  of  "Kilgarrin  Castle"  "so 
like  Wilson  in  manner,  treatment,  and  colour  that  it  might 
fairly  be  called  a  'Wilson  Turner.'  "  Constable,  also,  though 
he  did  not  choose  the  grand  themes,  and  though  he  rejected 
the  classical  mannerisms  of  Wilson,  was  yet  one  of  his  great 
admirers.  Of  a  visit  to  the  gallery  of  Sir  John  Leicester  in 
1823  he  wrote,  "  I  recollect  nothing  so  much  as  a  large,  solemn, 
bright,  warm,  fresh  landscape  by  Wilson,  which  still  swims  in 
my  brain  like  a  delicious  dream.  Poor  Wilson !  think  of  his 
fate,  think  of  his  magnificence."'  Of  Wilson's  place  in  the 
development  of  art  Ruskin  says,  "I  believe  that  with  the 
name  of  Richard  Wilson  the  history  of  sincere  landscape  art, 
founded  on  a  meditative  love  of  nature,  begins  with  England." 
Thomas  Gainsborough,  though  mainly  known  as  a  por- 
trait painter,  showed  an  early  and  persistent  bent  toward 
landscape.  Before  he  was  twelve  it  was  his  delight  to  spend 
his  mornings  in  the  woods  near  his  home  at  Sudbury  in 
Suffolk,  sketching  from  streams,  trees,  cattle,  sheep,  and 
peasants.  In  1741,  at  fourteen  years  of  age,  he  went  to  Lon- 
don and  studied,  first  under  Gravelot,  then  under  Hayman, 
and  finally  set  up  a  studio  of  his  own.  His  ostensible  work 
was  portraits  for  which  he  charged  from  three  to  five  guineas, 
but  he  likewise  painted  landscapes  for  such  prices  as  they 
would  bring.  From  1745  to  1759  he  was  again  in  Suffolk, 
but  this  time  at  Ipswich,  twenty-two  miles  east  from  his  old 
home  at  Sudbury,  and  in  the  region  between  the  Orwell  and 
the  Stour,  the  region  afterward  made  famous  by  Constable. 

I  In  the  "Magazine  of  Fine  Arts,"  November,  1805. 
3  C.  R.  Leslie,  RA.,  "  Memoirs  of  the  Life  of  John  Constable  "  (ed. 
1845),  P-  no- 


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LANDSCAPE  PAINTING  305 

During  the  Ipswich  period  he  was  slowly  building  up  a  repu- 
tation as  a  portrait  painter;  but  here,  too,  he  made  "Madam 
Nature,  not  man,  his  sole  study."     He  did  much  sketching 
along  the  picturesque  banks  of  the  Orwell  and  in  the  groves 
of  oaks  and  elms  in  the  neighborhood  of  Ipswich.     That 
he  painted  many  landscapes  while  at  Ipswich  is  indicated 
by  the  fact  that  Governor  Thicknesse  called  upon  him  in 
1754,'  and  was  much  struck  by  the  great  beauty  of  the  small 
landscapes  mingled  with  the  rather  stiff  portraits  in  the  artist's 
studio.     None  of  these  landscapes  can  now  be  identified,  but 
it  was  their  excellence  that  gained  from  Governor  a  com- 
mission to  paint  "Landguard  Fort,"  important  as  the  earliest 
known  of  Gainsborough's  landscapes,  though,  even  in  this 
case,  the  original  picture  has  perished  and  is  known  only 
through  Thomas  Major's  engraving.     To  the  latter  part  of 
the  Ipswich  period  belong  the  "Cornard  Wood,"  "View  of 
Dedham"  and  two  small  uprights  in  the  National  Gallery, 
besides  seven  or  eight  other  canvases  attributed  to  these 
years.     The  landscapes  of  this  period  were  strongly  influenced 
by  Dutch  artists.    The  most  noteworthy  picture  of  the  Ipswich 
years,  the  "Cornard  Wood,"  might  almost,  says  Mr.  Boulton, 
have  been  painted  by  Both  or  Berghem.     The  Dutch  fidelity 
to  the  details  of  the  scene  in  this  picture  was  shown  in  two 
other  probably  contemporary  landscapes  of  which  Mr.  Ful- 
cher  wrote,  "They  were  both  drawn  and  coloured  in  the  open 
air:  in  one  of  them  a  young  oak  is  painted  leaf  for  leaf,  while 
ferns  and  grasses  are  portrayed  with  microscopic  fidelity."^ 
Gainsborough's  life  at  Bath  (1760-74)  was  marked  by  almost 
exclusive  attention  to  portraiture,  yet  in  the  midst  of  his 
successes  here  he  wrote,  "I'm  sick  of  portraits  and  wish  very 
much  to  take  my  viol-da-gam  and  walk  off  to  some  sweet 

1  William  Boulton,  "Thomas  Gainsborough,"  p.  47. 

2  George  William  Fulcher,  "The  Life  of  Thomas  Gainsborough,"  p.  175. 


3o6  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

village  where  I  can  paint  landskip  and  enjoy  the  fag-end  of 
life  in  quietness  and  ease."  Quin  said  at  this  time  that  when 
a  portrait  was  on  the  easel  Gainsborough  was  disposed  to 
growl  at  all  sublunary  things,  but  if  he  was  engaged  on  a 
landscape  "he  was  all  gaiety,  his  imagination  in  the  skies." 
He  employed  the  intervals  between  sittings  in  studying  the 
fine  trees  in  his  neighborhood.  He  painted  numerous  land- 
scapes and  rural  scenes  during  the  Bath  period,  the  more 
celebrated  ones,  such  as  the  "Market  Cart"  of  the  National 
Gallery,  the  "Harvest  Wagon,"  and  the  "Cottage  Door," 
belonging  to  the  later  years  of  that  period.  During  Gains- 
borough's last  or  London  period  (1774-88)  he  still  kept  up 
his  interest  in  Nature  and  took  a  house  on  Kew  Green  that 
he  might  have  a  convenient  center  for  sketching  tours  along 
the  banks  of  the  Thames,  and  many  landscapes  were  pro- 
duced during  these  years.  Walpole  says  of  one  exhibited 
in  1777  that  it  was  "by  far  the  finest  landscape  ever  painted 
in  England,  and  equal  to  the  great  masters."  Another  in 
1779  Walpole  called  "most  natural,  bold,  and  admirable." 
Six  landscapes  in  1780  he  characterized  as  "charming,  very 
spirited,  as  admirable  as  the  great  masters."^  Walpole's  fav- 
orable opinion  of  Gainsborough  was  quite  generally  shared  by 
artists  and  critics,  but  even  in  his  case  there  was  but  a  small 
purchasing  public,  so  that  when  he  died  in  1788  his  house  was 
found  to  be  filled  with  unsold  landscapes.  This  fact,  and 
the  large  sums  he  could  command  for  portraits,  make  it  all 
the  more  striking  that  out  of  a  total  of  eight  hundred  and 
eighty-seven  pictures  about  a  fifth  should  be  landscapes.^ 

In  the  landscapes  of  the  Bath  and  London  periods  the 
labored  accuracy  of  the  early  work  gives  place  to  the  "land- 
scape    generalization"   by   which    Gainsborough's    mature 

»  William  Boulton,  "Thomas  Gainsborough,"  p.  249. 

3  Sir  Walter  Armstrong,  "Gainsborough  and  His  Place  in  English  Art." 


THE  MARKET  CART 
By  Thomas  Gainsborough 


LANDSCAPE  PAINTING  307 

paintings  are  characterized.  In  these  later  landscapes,  of 
which  the  great  "Watering  Place"  in  the  National  Gallery 
may  be  taken  as  the  supreme  example,  there  is  an  apparent 
ignoring  of  the  separate  facts  of  Nature.  No  oaks  are  painted 
leaf  for  leaf.  There  is  not  even  sufi&cient  definiteness  to 
make  the  kind  of  tree  unmistakable.  Yet  the  effect  of  Nature 
is  adequately  rendered.  The  mind  is  conducted  into  genuine 
woodland  coolness  and  shade.  As  we  look  we  become 
gradually  conscious  of  the  mysterious  charm  of  Nature  herself. 
These  landscapes  not  only  satisfy  the  eye  by  wonderful  har- 
monies of  color  and  flowing  line,  but  they  speak  appealingly 
to  the  emotions.  Constable  says  of  them,  "They  are  sooth- 
ing, tender,  and  affecting.  The  stillness  of  noon,  the  depths 
of  twilight,  and  the  dews  and  pearls  of  morning  are  all  to  be 
found  on  the  canvases  of  this  most  benevolent  and  kind- 
hearted  man.  On  looking  at  them  we  find  tears  in  our  eyes 
and  we  know  not  what  brings  them."^ 

In  theme  Gainsborough  is  distinctively  English,  and  even 
within  this  limit  his  range  is  narrow.  The  grander  ele- 
ments in  Nature  did  not  stir  his  imagination.  Mountains, 
the  ocean,  storms,  were,  to  be  sure,  not  entirely  absent  from 
his  pictures.  In  1781  he  had  apparently  been  painting  along 
the  coast,  for  Walpole  comments  on  two  pictures  "of  sea  and 
land,"  "so  fine  and  natural  that  one  stepped  back  for  fear 
of  being  splashed."  One  of  these  was,  Mr.  Conway  thinks, 
the  Duke  of  Westminster's  "Coast  Scene,"  "a  sparkling 
picture,  articulately  suggestive  of  a  single  delightful  idea," 
a  windy  day  on  an  estuary.  In  1783  Gainsborough  made  a 
trip  to  Cumberland  and  Westmoreland,  gaily  predicting  that 
on  his  return  he  would  show  "your  Grays  and  Dr.  Browns 
to  be  but  tawdry   fan-painters."^     Sir  Walter  Armstrong 

1  C.  R.  Leslie,  R.A.,  "Memoirs  of  John  Constable"  (ed.  1845),  P-  354- 

2  A   letter  to   Pearce   at   Bath.     William    Boulton,  "  Thomas  Gains- 
borough," p.  277. 


3o8  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

reproduces  a  chalk  drawing  subsequent  to  this  period  in 
which  "  the  hills  in  the  distance  are  thoroughly  true  in  mass, 
perspective,  and  aerial  envelope;'"  Mr.  Fletcher  is  of  the 
opinion  that  had  Gainsborough  "lived  a  few  years  longer, 
he  would  undoubtedly  have  taken  a  new  departure  in  land- 
scape art;"^  and  Mr.  Boulton  finds  in  the  pictures  after  1783 
a  new  tendency  to  deal  with  rocky  foreground  and  mountain 
scenery. 3  Yet  a  few  successful  coast  scenes  and  a  late  and 
certainly  rather  slight  interest  in  mountain  regions  can  hardly 
affect  the  statement  that  Gainsborough  was,  on  the  whole, 
but  little  moved  by  the  grander  aspects  of  Nature.  He  cared 
as  little  for  the  majestic,  the  terrible,  the  awe-inspiring,  as 
he  did  for  the  trim,  the  formal,  and  the  precise.  What  he 
loved  to  portray  was  the  gently  varied  and  picturesque  scenery 
of  his  own  countryside.  He  sought  out  woodland  roads, 
lanes  with  steep  grassy  banks,  trees  heavy  with  foliage, 
tangled  copses,  pools  of  still  water,  skies  glowing  with  sunset 
hues,  or  deepening  into  twilight,  or  with  the  blue  showing 
through  rifted  storm  clouds.  Cumberland  and  Westmore- 
land had  for  him  no  appeal  comparable  to  the  remembered 
charm  of  Suffolk. 

Gainsborough's  pictures  of  rural  life  do  not  properly  come 
under  the  head  of  landscape  painting,  but  the  representation 
of  country  activities,  and  pure  landscapes  run  into  each  other 
by  many  gradations.  If  we  consider  those  pictures  in  which 
landscape  elements  distinctly  predominate  we  shall  find  that 
the  figures  of  men  and  animals  are  hardly  more  than  ani- 
mating or  decorative  details.  One  of  the  artist's  rare  theoreti- 
cal statements  was  to  the  effect  that  a  landscape  should  admit 

1  Sir  Walter  Armstrong,  "Gainsborough  and  His  Place  in  English  Art," 
p.  149. 

2  A.  E.  Fletcher,  "Thomas  Gainsborough,  R.A.,"  p.  161. 

3  William  Boulton,  "Thomas  Gainsborough,"  p.  278. 


LANDSCAPE  PAINTING  309 

only  such  figures  as  "create  a  little  business  for  the  eye  to 
be  drawn  from  the  trees  in  order  to  return  to  them  with  more 
glee."^  Accordingly  the  figures  whether  of  men  or  animals 
were  painted  because  they  helped  out  the  scheme  of  light, 
of  color,  of  form  in  the  picture  as  a  whole.  But  while  this 
is  true,  it  is  likewise  true  that  his  rustic  groups,  his  shaggy 
horses,  his  cattle,  and  goats,  and  donkeys,  and  pigs  are  some- 
thing more  than  picturesque  elements  in  the  landscape. 
They  help  to  individualize  and  interpret  it,  and  they  give  it 
a  quaint,  homely  charm.  The  grandeur  of  Wilson's  themes, 
the  solemnity  of  his  tone,  make  the  few  small  figures  in  his 
pictures  seem  strikingly  incongruous  with  the  scene,  but 
Gainsborough's  figures  have  an  intimate  union  with  the 
landscape. 

However  impossible  it  may  be  to  determine  who  is  the 
"father"  of  English  landscape  art,  there  can  be  no  question 
as  to  the  value  of  having  at  the  formative  period  of  that  art 
two  men  so  unlike  in  education,  temperament,  and  taste  as 
Wilson  and  Gainsborough.  One  brought  in  the  Italian, 
the  other  the  Dutch  influence,  yet  each  was  too  strong  an 
individuality  to  be  a  mere  copyist.  The  one  painted  with 
poetic  comprehension  and  in  a  grand  manner,  not  only  the 
sunny  skies,  clear  air,  bright  lakes,  and  ruined  temples  of 
classic  lands,  but  also,  and  with  equal  power,  scenes  of  dignity, 
grandeur,  and  pathos,  in  his  own  land,  while  the  other  painted 
with  genuine  tenderness  and  affection  the  lovely  scenes  of 
rural  England.  Both  loved  Nature  passionately  and  strove 
to  express  that  love  in  their  pictures.  From  the  point  of  view 
of  a  growing  taste  for  the  beauties  of  the  out-door  world, 
both  artists  are  of  the  greatest  importance.  The  transfer 
of  interest  from  man  to  Nature  is  as  marked  in  their  pictures 
as  in  any  other  realm  of  thought  and  emotion. 

I  In  a  letter  to  William  Jackson  written  about  1768. 


3IO  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

Contemporary  with  Wilson  and  Gainsborough  were  many 
artists  of  lesser  note  whose  work  is  nevertheless  important 
because  of  the  cumulative  testimony  it  bears  to  the  growing 
interest  in  Nature.  The  catalogues  of  the  Society  of  Artists 
(1761-91),  of  the  Free  Society  (1761-83),  and  of  the  Royal 
Society  which  began  its  exhibitions  in  1769,^  supplemented 
by  some  other  scattered  sources  of  information,  give  an  idea 
of  the  scope  and  the  themes  of  this  work,  though  not  many  of 
the  original  pictures  are  now  accessible. 

We  find,  in  the  first  place,  that  nearly  all  the  artists  who 
were  painting  from  Nature  before  1755  continued  their  work 
for  periods  of  considerable  length  after  that  date.  Boydell 
published  forty  plates  from  the  "Derbyshire  Views"  of 
Thomas  Smith  who  continued  to  exhibit  till  1767.^  Samuel 
Scott  exhibited  occasional  sea  and  shore  views  to  1771. 
Between  1761-74  George  Smith  of  Chichester  exhibited  over 
a  hundred  landscapes  some  of  which  show  a  reaching-out  into 
new  realms.  He  has  not  only  genre  pictures  such  as  "A 
Country  Family  Picking  Their  Own  Hops"  (1761)3  and 
"Cottages  in  a  Wood"  (1773),  but  experiments  such  as 
"Moonlight,"  "Mist,"  "Sunset,"  and  eighteen  "Frost"  or 
"Snow"  scenes.  WiUiam  Bellers  is  credited,  between 
1761-73,  with  seventy-seven  landscapes,  twenty-eight  of 
them  being  views  in  the  Lake  District.     Alexander  Cozens 

1  Algernon  Graves,  F.  S.  A.,  "The  Society  of  Artists  and  the  Free 
Society,"  1907;   "The  Royal  Academy  Exhibitors,"  1906. 

2  Thomas  Gray  in  his  "Journal"  for  October  13,  1769,  says,  "At  the  ale- 
house where  I  dined  in  Malham,  Vivares,  the  landscape  painter,  had  lodged 
for  a  week  or  more;  Smith  and  Bellers  had  also  been  there,  and  two  prints 
of  Gordale  have  been  engraved  by  them." 

3  Horace  Walpole  in  "Anecdotes  of  Painting"  (pub.  1762-71),  II,  717 
(ed.  1826),  suggested  hop-fields  as  new  picturesque  material  for  artists. 
Scott  in  his  "Essay  on  Painting"  reiterated  the  idea,  giving  Walpole 
credit  as  its  originator.  They  apparently  did  not  know  George  Smith's 
picture. 


^      X  S 


LANDSCAPE  PAINTING  3" 

lived  till  1786  and  exhibited  many  small  landscapes  in  which 
he  paid  especial  attention  to  "chiaro-oscuro."  His  chief  work, 
however,  was  as  a  teacher,  and  he  published  some  books 
on  art,  notable  among  them  being  ''The  Shape,  Skeleton, 
and  Foliage  of  Thirty-Two  Species  of  Trees"  (1771,  repub- 
lished 1786).  Taverner  was  also  working  as  late  as  1772. 
George  Stubbs  was  constantly  represented  in  exhibitions  from 
1761  to  1803. 

Of  far  more  importance  than  any  of  the  artists  mentioned 
in  the  foregoing  paragraph  is  Paul  Sandby,^  who,  as  has 
already  been  indicated,  was  the  first  to  make  known  to  art  the 
wild  and  beautiful  scenery  of  the  Scotch  Highlands.  In  1773 
he  exhibited  his  first  Welsh  picture,  and  after  that  he  did  much 
work  in  Wales.  Though  not  the  first  to  paint  in  that  region 
— ^for  Boydell,  Wilson,  Farington,  and  Devis  were  ahead  of 
him — he  yet  did  much  to  show  its  picturesque  possibilities. 
His  important  Welsh  "aquatint  views  taken  on  the  spot" 
appeared  in  four  sets  of  twelve  plates  each,  beginning  in 
1775,  the  very  year  of  Boydell's  publication  of  Wilson's 
"Six  Views."  These  mountain  pictures,  especially  those  of 
the  second  series,  justly  rank  as  the  most  vital  landscape  work 
contemporary  with  Wilson  and  Gainsborough.  "Llangolin 
in  Denbigh,"  "Conwyd  Mill,"  "Llanberis  Lake  and  Great 
Mountain  Snowdon,"  "Pont-y-Pair  over  the  River  Conway" 
are  but  a  few  of  the  many  pictures  that  show  with  what 
enthusiasm  Sandby  surrendered  himself  to  impressions  from 
the  grand  scenery  of  Wales.  The  striking  change  from  early 
eighteenth-century  topographical  sketches  where  the  building 
was  merely  rendered  slightly  more  attractive  by  washed-in 
skies  and    greensward   is   evidenced   by  such   pictures   as 

I  There  is  a  fine  collection  of  Sandby's  drawings  in  the  Print  Room  of 
the  British  Museum.  For  particulars  of  his  life  see  William  Sandby, 
"Thomas  and  Paul  Sandby:   Their  Lives  and  Works." 


312  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

Sandby's  "Wynnestay,  Seat  of  Sir  Watkins  William  Wynne" 
which  is  a  pure  landscape  with  no  house  visible.  So,  too,  in 
"Chirk  Castle"  there  is  but  the  faintest  indication  of  the 
castle  in  the  distance.  Sandby's  original  purpose  may  have 
been  topographical  but  the  outcome  was  pure  landscape  of 
great  interest  and  significance. 

There  are,  in  addition  to  these  older  men,  several  artists 
whose  work  begins  about  1760  or  soon  after.  Anthony  Devis 
exhibited  in  1761-63  eight  pictures,  chiefly  "Views  in  Wales." 
He  would  thus  antedate  all  painters  of  Welsh  scenery  except 
Boydell.  In  1761-78  James  Lambert  exhibited  numerous 
landscapes  including  many  with  titles  such  as  "A  Misty 
Morning  with  Ewes  and  Lambs,"  "Landscape  with  Ewes 
and  Lambs,"  "A  Farm-yard  with  Cattle."  George  Barret 
(1732-84)  was  an  Irish  painter  who  had  taken  a  premium 
for  landscape  from  the  Dublin  Society  before  he  came  to 
England  in  1762.  Of  the  fifty-five  landscapes  exhibited  by 
him  in  England  during  the  years  1764-82  the  earliest  were  of 
Powerscourt  Park  in  Ireland,  but  from  1769  to  1772  he  shows 
Scotch  and  Lake  District  views,  and  in  1776-77  three  pictures 
of  "Llanberis  Pool  in  the  Mountains  of  Snowdon."  The 
list  of  his  pictures  shows  some  interesting  special  studies  as 
"A  Moonlight,  with  the  Effect  of  a  Mist;  a  Study  from 
Nature"  (1767);  "A  Group  of  Beech  Trees"  (1776);  "A 
View  of  Windermere  Lake,  in  Westmoreland,  the  effect, 
the  sun  beginning  to  appear  in  the  morning,  with  the  mists 
breaking  and  dispersing"  (1781).  Barret  was  a  very  popular 
painter.  Of  his  premium  picture  in  1764  Barry  wrote, 
"My  friend  and  countryman,  Barret,  does  no  small  honour 
to  Landscape  amongst  us;  I  have  seen  nothing  to  match  his 
last  year's  premium  picture.  It  has  discovered  to  me  a  very 
great  want  in  the  aerial  part  of  my  favourite  Claude's  per- 
formances."   Barret's  work  brought  prices  never  before  paid 


LANDSCAPE  PAINTING  313 

for  landscapes,  Lord  Dalkeith  having  given  fifteen  hundred 
pounds  for  three  of  them.  The  Rev.  John  Lock  commis- 
sioned him  to  paint  the  principal  rooms  of  his  house  from 
skirting  to  ceiling  with  landscape  scenes/  Richard  Wright 
(1735-75)  '^^'^s  a  marine  painter  known  sometimes  as  "Wright 
of  the  Isle  of  Man."  In  1764  he  took  a  premium  of  fifty 
guineas  for  a  sea-piece  from  which  Woollett  engraved 
"The  Fishery."  Such  themes  as  "A  Ship  in  a  Squall," 
"The  Sun  Dispersing  a  Fog,"  "A  Fresh  Gale,"  "A  Moon- 
light," show  attempts  at  the  representation  of  other  aspects 
of  the  sea  than  merely  as  a  background  for  England's  navy. 
Wright  exhibited  till  1773.  Another  marine  painter,  John 
Cleveley,  exhibited  from  1764-86.  Fleets,  royal  yachts, 
ships  of  war,  distinguished  naval  events,  are  his  chief  themes. 
Dominic  Serres  (1722-93)  exhibited  after  1765.  He,  too, 
was  chiefly  occupied  with  naval  affairs,  particularly  so  after 
1780  when  he  became  marine  painter  to  his  majesty.  The 
Rev.  William  Gilpin  (i 723-1804)  contributed  to  the  interest 
in  home  scenery  by  numerous  sketches  and,  especially,  by 
his  book,  'Torest  Scenery"  (1786).  Far  more  gifted  was  his 
younger  brother,  Sawrey  Gilpin  (1733-1807),  who  excelled 
as  an  animal  painter.  His  most  abundant  as  well  as  his  most 
spirited  and  accurate  work  is  in  portraits  of  fine  horses  and 
dogs.  But  he  painted  other  animals  also,  birds,  deer,  foxes, 
tigers,  and  even  "American  Bears"  (1798).  There  is  in 
the  South  Kensington  Museum  a  beautiful  canvas  by  Gilpin 
called  "Cows  in  a  Landscape."  It  has  a  smooth,  clear, 
decorative  effect,  the  cows  are  broadly,  simply,  but  realis- 
tically painted,  and  the  landscape  gives  in  most  suggestive 
fashion  the  mists,  the  faintly  illumined  sky,  the  dewy  feeling, 
of  early  morning.^ 

1  Cosmo  Monkhouse,  "The  Earlier  English  Water-Colour  Painters," 
p.  24. 

2  It  is  said  that  Gilpin's  landscape  backgrounds  were  frequently  put  in 
by  other  men,  notably  by  Barret. 


314  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

The  men  enumerated  in  the  preceding  paragraph  did  all  of 
their  work,  or,  in  a  few  cases  such  as  Paul  Sandby  and  Sawrey 
Gilpin  who  painted  through  the  century,  did  much  of  their 
most  characteristic  work,  before  1785.  There  is  still  another 
group  of  men  who  were  born  about  the  middle  of  the  century 
the  bulk  of  whose  work,  or  whose  most  significant  work, 
belongs  before  1800.  Of  professional  marine  painters  we 
have  Robert  Cleveley  who  began  to  exhibit  in  1780;  the  more 
celebrated  Nicholas  Pocock  (1741-1821);  and  John  Thomas 
Serres  (i 759-1825),  all  of  whom  carried  on  the  traditional 
representation  of  noted  ships,  harbors,  and  naval  actions. 
David  Allan's  (1744-96)  best  work  is  his  set  of  illustrations 
of  "The  Gentle  Shepherd."  He  went  to  the  Pentland  Hills 
and  studied  both  the  places  and  the  people  he  wished  to 
represent.  "  He  visited,"  says  Cunningham,  "every  hill,  dale, 
tree,  stream,  and  cottage,  which  could  be  admitted  into  the 

landscape  of  the  poet Glaid's  farm  house,  the  Monk's 

burn,  the  Linn,  the  Washing  Green,  Habbie's  How,  New 
Hall  House,  and  that  little  breast-deep  basin  in  the  burn, 
called  Peggie's  pool,  were  all  carefully  drawn."  It  was 
Allan's  endeavor  to  do  in  painting  what  Ramsay  had  done 
half  a  century  before  in  poetry,  and  though  his  pictures  are  far 
from  expressing  the  brightness  and  beauty  of  the  poem,  they 
fairly  take  rank  as  important  attempts  to  represent  native 
landscapes  from  careful,  first-hand  observation.  James  de 
Loutherbourg  (1740-1812)  came  to  England  about  1770,  and 
was  constantly  represented  in  the  exhibitions  during  the 
rest  of  the  century.  His  vigorous  storms  and  sea-scapes 
were  long  popular.  The  public  taste  that  could  laud  De 
Loutherbourg's  pictures  and  neglect  Wilson's  was  severely 
satirized  by  "Peter  Pindar."'     But  De  Loutherbourg  has 

I  Wolcot  ("Peter  Pindar")  in  his  verse  comments  on  the  exhibitions  of 
1782,  1783,  1785,  1786,  says  in  an  apostrophe  to  De  Loutherbourg: 


i 


«s 


.  1 


h 


t: 


C 
h-1 


LANDSCAPE  PAINTING  315 

another  claim  to  recognition  in  that  he  was  one  of  the  staunch- 
est  defenders  of  the  picturesque  scenery  of  the  British  Isles 
as  against  that  of  other  lands.  He  maintained  that  no  Eng- 
lish painter  need  go  abroad  for  inspiration  when  he  had  access 
to  the  Highlands  of  Scotland,  the  Lake  District  of  Cumber- 
land, and  the  mountainous  region  of  North  Wales.  It  was 
to  further  this  idea  that  he  opened  his  panorama  of  English 
scenery  in  1782,  a  show  by  which  Gainsborough  was  fasci- 
nated, and  which,  apparently,  prompted  his  visit  to  the 
Lakes  in  1783.^  Thomas  Hearne  (i 744-181 7)  is  of  impor- 
tance in  the  early  history  of  water-color.  In  1777  he  began  a 
series  of  tours  through  Great  Britian  for  the  purpose  of 
illustrating  ''The  Antiquities  of  Great  Britain"  for  which  he 
made  fifty-two  drawings.  Mr.  Cosmo  Monkhouse  praises 
him  for  close  and  fresh  observation  of  Nature,  for  excellence 
in  atmospheric  perspective,  for  truth  of  sunlight,  and  for 
beauty  of  trees  and  skies.^  Though  he  lived  well  into  the 
nineteenth  century,  much  of  his  most  finished  work  belongs 
before  1800.     Joseph  Farington   (i  747-1821)   was  a  pupil 

And  Loutherbourg,  when  Heaven  so  wills 

To  make  brass  skies  and  golden  hills, 
With  marble  bullocks  in  glass  pastures  grazing, 

Thy  reputation  too  will  rise 

And  people,  gaping  with  surprise, 
Cry  "Master  Loutherbourg  is  most  amazing. " 

But  thou  must  wait  for  that  event; 

Perhaps  the  change  is  never  meant; 
Till  then  with  me  thy  pencil  will  not  shine; 

Till  then  old  red-nosed  Wilson's  art 

Will  hold  its  empire  o'er  my  heart, 
By  Britain  left  in  poverty  to  pine. 

But  honest  Wilson,  never  mind, 

Immortal  praises  thou  shalt  find. 
And  for  a  dinner  have  no  cause  to  fear. 

Thou  start'st  at  my  prophetic  rhymes; 

Don't  be  impatient  for  those  times, 
Wait  till  thou  hast  been  dead  a  hundred  year. 

1  Walter  Thornbury,  "The  Life  of  J.  M.  W.  Turner,  R.A.,"  pp.  113-15. 

2  Cosmo  Monkhouse,  "The  Earlier  English  Water-Colour  Painters," 
p.  62. 


3l6  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

of  Richard  Wilson.  He  exhibited  almost  yearly  from  1765 
to  1813.  He  may  possibly  have  been  with  Wilson  in  Wales 
before  1766.  At  any  rate  he  exhibited  in  1768  and  1770 
views  of  Snowdon  Hill  and  Penmaenmawr.  Between  1778 
and  1784  are  views  of  "Ambleside,"  "Skiddaw  and  Derwent- 
water,"  "Lodore,"  "Rydal  Waterfall,"  "Borrodale  Grange," 
"  Winandermere  from  High-harig."  Mr.  Gilpin  in  his  book 
on  Cumberland  (1786)  says  that  descriptions  are  useless  since 
there  are  prints  so  accurate  and  beautiful  as  these  of  Mr. 
Farington.  Mr.  Farington  also  has  many  views  from  Kent, 
Sussex,  Devonshire,  Oxford,  and  Buckinghamshire.  John 
Rathbone  (1750-1807),  sometimes  called  "the  Manchester 
Wilson,"  began  to  exhibit  in  1785.  Of  his  forty-eight 
recorded  landscapes  eleven  represent  Lake  District  scenes, 
and  most  of  the  others  are  from  similar  scenery  in  Derbyshire, 
Lancashire,  on  the  Wye,  or  in  Wales.  Julius  Caesar  Ibbetson 
(17 59-181 7)  painted  Welsh  views  after  1796  and  Cumberland 
views  after  1798.  He  is  best  known,  however,  as  a  skilful 
painter  of  animals  and  of  groups  of  gay,  rollicking  rustic 
figures  in  an  agreeable  landscape  setting.  Of  the  six  pic- 
tures by  him  in  the  South  Kensington  Museum  the  one  called 
"Jack  in  his  Glory"  is  most  characteristic.  The  "Conway 
Castle,  North  Wales"  (1794)  has  the  added  interest  of  being 
a  moonhght  scene.  Abraham  Pether  (1756-1812)  began  to 
exhibit  in  1777.  From  1784  to  1800  at  least  a  fifth  of  his 
exhibited  pictures  were  simply  entitled  "Moonlight."  He 
painted  "a  water-mill,"  "an  iron  foundry,"  "a  waterfall," 
" a  fire,"  and  "  ruins"  by  moonlight.  He  also  chose  as  themes 
"  Evening,"  "  Sunset,"  "  Morning  just  before  Dawn,"  "  Even- 
ing and  Rain,"  and  other  unusual  and  delicately  discriminated 
natural  phenomena.  Edward  Dayes  (i  763-1804) ,  the  master 
of  Girtin,  made  many  studies  in  the  Lake  District  after  1790. 
The  "Windermere"  and  "Keswick  Lake"  in  the  gallery 


LANDSCAPE  PAINTING  317 

at  South  Kensington  attest  the  truthfulness  and  charm  of 
his  work. 

The  most  important  landscape  painters  of  the  second  half 
of  the  century  have  yet  to  be  mentioned,  Morland,  Girtin, 
and  Cozens.  John  Robert  Cozens  (1752-99)  began  to  exhibit 
when  only  fifteen  years  of  age.  At  twenty-four  he  was  taken 
by  Mr.  Robert  Payne  Knight  to  Switzerland  to  make  sketches 
of  the  scenery.  Of  the  work  done  on  this  trip  Mr.  Monkhouse 
says, 

These  drawings  of  1776  are  remarkable  in  the  history  not  only  of 
English  water-colour  painting  and  English  art,  but  in  the  history  of 
landscape  painting  of  all  time.  They  are  the  first  successful^  attempt 
to  give  a  true  impression  of  Alpine  scenery.  From  the  first  Cozens 
seems  to  have  found  his  way  to  render  its  character,  to  convey  the 
grandeur  of  its  snow-crowned  peaks,  the  depth  of  its  valleys,  the  solitude 
of  its  lakes,  the  appearance  of  its  slopes,  "fledged,"  as  Shelley  sang, 
"with  pines,"  the  sun  striking  through  the  gorges  on  high-perched  cot, 
or  village,  the  chill  of  the  shaded  hollows  filled  with  mist,  the  cloaks 
of  cloud  about  the  shoulders  of  the  hills, — and  all  this  not  in  a  pretty 
conventional  or  a  grand  conventional  manner,  but  with  a  style  that  was 

Nature's  own His  mountains  look   their  height,   and  suggest 

their  bulk  and  weight.^ 

Cozens  was  in  England  again  by  1779.  A  second  visit  to 
Italy  with  Mr.  Beckford  ended  in  1783  and  resulted  like  the 
first  tour  in  a  large  number  of  water-color  drawings.  Mr. 
Thornbury  comments  on  a  view  of  a  glacier  valley  executed 
at  this  time  as  "  worthy  of  all  praise  for  its  multitudinousness, 
breadth,  and  grand,  harmonious  simplicity,  as  well  as  for 
the  dazzling  purity  of  its  colour.  "^    Constable  said  of  Cozens 

r  Edmund  Garvey,  an  inferior  painter,  had  exhibited  "Three  Views 
of  the  Alps"  in  1770,  and  an  artist  named  Morris  had  in  1769  exhibited  "A 
Waterfall  in  the  Alps." 

»  Cosmo  Monkhouse,  "The  Earlier  English  Water-Colour  Painters," 
p.  38. 

3  Walter  Thornbury,  "The  Life  of  J.  M.  W.  Turner,  R.A.,"  p.  50. 


3i8  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

that  he  was  "all  poetry,"  and  that  "he  was  the  greatest 
genius  that  ever  touched  landscape;"  and  Turner  said  that 
from  Cozens'  "Hannibal  Crossing  the  Alps"  (1776)  he  had 
learned  more  than  from  anything  he  had  before  seen.^ 

Thomas  Girtin  (1775-1802)  had  a  short  life  but  he  came 
early  to  the  maturity  of  his  genius.  He  exhibited  at  the  Royal 
Academy  from  1794  to  1801.  In  about  1796  he  went  to  the 
north  of  England  and  to  Scotland  with  James  Moore,  and 
there  "made  many  sketches  of  pure  landscape,  recording 
the  grand  effects  of  light  and  shade  upon  the  swelling  moors 
and  rolling  downs,  with  a  breadth  and  simplicity  and  a  large 
regard  to  truth  never  equalled  before."^  In  the  South  Ken- 
sington Gallery  are  many  water-colors  by  Girtin  that  show 
his  excellent  drawing  and  his  skill  in  the  use  of  color.  Four 
Yorkshire  views,  a  "Coast  Scene,"  and  three  river  scenes 
well  illustrate  the  truth  and  vigor  with  which  he  represented 
landscape.  Mr.  Ruskin  said  of  Girtin's  work,  "He  is  often 
as  impressive  to  me  as  Nature  herself;  nor  do  I  doubt  that 
Turner  owed  more  to  his  teaching  and  companionship  than 
to  his  own  genius  in  the  first  years  of  his  life."^ 

George  Morland  (i 763-1804)  exhibited  at  the  Royal 
Academy  at  the  age  of  ten,  and  from  that  time  on  each  year 
saw  many  pictures  from  his  brush.  He  seldom  painted 
pure  landscapes.  But  whatever  his  theme  the  landscape 
setting  is  almost  invariably  worthy  of  particular  attention. 
In  many  notable  pictures  of  gipsies  or  wood-cutters  it  is,  in 
fact,  not  the  fat,  invertebrate  figures  of  men  and  women  that 
hold  the  eye.    The  imagination  is  captured  instead  by  the 

»  Of  the  twenty-seven  pictures  by  Cozens  in  the  South  Kensington 
Gallery  all  but  one  or  two  are  Italian  scenes.  Even  more  interesting  for 
study  is  the  fine  collection  of  drawings  by  him  in  the  Print  Room  of  the 
British  Museum. 

a  Cosmo  Monkhouse,  "The  Earlier  English  Water-Colour  Painters," 
p.  86. 

3  Many  of  Girtin's  drawings  are  in  the  British  Museum. 


hi 

C    ^ 


U^    CQ 


LANDSCAPE  PAINTING  319 

bower  of  shade,  by  the  deep  wild-wood  of  the  background. 
So,  too,  in  various  coast  scenes,  the  chalk  cliffs  against  which 
breakers  dash  in  blinding  spray,  the  trees  bending  before  the 
wind,  the  rifts  of  blue  sky  showing  through  scattering  storm 
clouds,  the  feeling  of  rain  in  the  air,  certainly  count  for  as 
much  in  the  general  impression  as  do  the  men  tugging  at 
the  rope  or  lading  wagons  with  the  spoils  of  the  sea.     Nearly 
all  of  norland's  domestic  pictures  have  an  exquisite  frame- 
work of  old  oak  trees,  climbing  vines,  and  flowering  shrubs. 
J.  T.  Smith^  says  that  Morland  was  "  the  first  artist  who  gave 
the  sturdy  oak  its  peculiar  character  in  landscape  painting." 
As  a  painter  of  animals  Morland  excels.     His  horses 
are  of  especial  interest  for  he  does  not  expend  his  art  on  por- 
traits of  noted  racers  or  thoroughbreds,  but  on  work-horses, 
and  preferably  on  such  horses  at  the  moment  of  release  from 
toil.     "The  Inside  of  a  Stable"  (1791)  in  the  National  Gal- 
lery, and  "  Horses  in  a  Stable  "  (1791)  in  the  South  Kensington 
Gallery  are  two  of  his  finest  works;  and  they  show  not  only 
his  power  of  painting  dim  old  interiors  in  the  softest  blend 
of  color,  but  they  show  particularly  the  attentive  sympathy 
with  which  he  had  studied  horses.     Many  similar  pictures 
could  be  cited  but  chief  among  them  for  pathetic  understand- 
ing is  'The  Blind  White  Horse."   Pigs  were  among  Morland's 
favorite  subjects.     So  frequently  did  he  introduce  them  into 
his  pictures  that  the  tide-page  of  a  book  of  his  sketches  por- 
trayed him  leaning  over  a  fence  and  making  a  drawing  of 
three  fat  sows.     The  animals  in  his  pictures  were  all  studied 
from  the  life.     The  white  horse  so  often  depicted  by  him 
was  modeled  from  an  old  nag  he  bought  and  kept  for  a  fort- 
night in  his  painting  room.     He  regularly  kept  by  him  vari- 
ous sorts  of  animals  for  study,  "dogs,  rabbits,  guinea-pigs, 
fowls,  ducks,  pigeons,  mice,  and  many  other  kinds  of  live- 

I  J.  T.  Smith,  "NoUekins  and  His  Times,"  II,  339  (London,  1828). 


\\ 


OF  ruc    ^^ 

OF 


320  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

stock,"'  and  sooner  or  later  these  were  sure  to  appear  in  his 
pictures  with  convincing  realism. 

Morland  rather  defiantly  declared  that  "the  barn,  the 
cow-house  and  the  piggery"  were  his  favorite  themes,  but  he 
has  another  class  of  subjects,  his  numerous  pictures  of  chil- 
dren, in  which  the  out-door  setting  is  of  great  charm.  Rey- 
nolds had  painted  beautiful  pictures  of  high-born,  well-dressed 
children;  and  Gainsborough  had  given  lovely,  pathetic, 
somewhat  idealized  representations  of  cottage  children;  but 
Morland  takes  us  into  the  realm  of  childhood  itself,  and  his 
gay,  romping  lads  and  lasses  swing  on  gates,  play  games,  go 
nutting,  sail  toy  boats,  in  the  midst  of  most  delightfully  real 
out-of-door  surroundings.^  All  that  Morland  does  is  simple, 
genuine,  spontaneous,  and  has  a  permanent  appeal,  and  his 
landscape  without  being  especially  beautiful  or  at  all  novel, 
has  a  sort  of  homely,  intimate,  and  obvious  charm. 

A  survey  of  the  century  shows  that  there  has  been  from 
1700  to  1800  a  remarkable  change  in  the  attitude  of  painting 
toward  the  external  world.  From  a  predominating  interest 
in  man  as  shown  in  history-painting  and  portraiture,  with,  at 
the  best,  landscape  as  an  unimportant  background  or  adorn- 
ment, we  come  to  a  period  when  landscape  is  not  only  a  very 
important  element  in  portraiture,  but  is  counted  as  so  valu- 
able in  itself  that  figures  take  rank  as  hardly  more  than  insig- 
nificant landscape  detail.  The  development  of  the  love  of 
Nature  is  shown  in  painting  in  England  somewhat  later  than 
in  poetry:  Thomson  antedates  the  early  English  landscape 
painters,  and  Wordsworth's  characteristic  poetry  of  Nature 
is  somewhat  earlier  than  the  great  paintings  of  Turner  and, 

I  James  A.  Manson,  "George  Morland,"  p.  80. 

»  Many  of  Morland's  pictures  have  been  engraved.  There  are  numer- 
ous reproductions  in  "  George  Morland  "  by  J.  T.  Herbert  Baily  ("Con- 
noisseur," Extra  Number,  igo6)  and  in  "George  Morland"  by  J.  T.  Nettle- 
ship  ("The  Portfolio,"  December,  1898). 


LANDSCAPE  PAINTING  321 

Constable.  But  in  abundance  and  variety  of  theme  the 
English  landscape  artists  have,  by  the  end  of  the  century, 
surpassed  even  the  poetry  of  the  period.  Pastoral  England 
receives  especially  full  recognition.  The  ocean  is,  however, 
comparatively  unimportant  as  a  source  of  inspiration,  even 
as  we  have  seen  it  to  be  in  the  poetry  of  the  same  years. 
Perhaps  the  most  striking  fact  is  the  remarkable  influence  \ 
of  mountains  in  reawakening  the  love  of  Nature.  The 
most  enthusiastic  and  original  landscape  work  was  based 
on  the  wild  scenery  of  Scotland,  Ireland,  Wales,  and  the 
Lake  District.^ 

Two  other  facts  that  bear  upon  the  period  as  a  whole 
should,  in  conclusion,  be  noted.  The  first  of  these  is  the 
stimulus  given  to  the  interest  in  Nature  in  England  by  the 
sketches  brought  home  by  artists  who  had  been  in  foreign 
lands.  Nearly  every  artist  studied  in  Italy  so  that  separate 
mention  of  Italian  scenes  is  not  necessary.  But  some  artists 
went  into  newer  fields.  Charles  Fox  (i 749-1809)  is  inter- 
esting as  being  the  first  recorded  artist  to  visit  Norway, 
Sweden,  and  Russia  for  the  purpose  of  representing  the  wild 

1  Biese  in  "Die  Entwickelung  des  Naturgefuhls,"  pp.  209-48,  gives  a 
brief  resume  of  the  development  of  landscape  painting  in  Germany.  He  calls 
Rubens  and  his  school  the  first  to  make  the  painting  of  Nature  an  independ- 
ent branch  of  art,  while  Ruysdael  (1681)  is  the  one  in  whom  "die  ganze 
Poesie  der  Natur"  finds  expression.  His  chapter  closes  with  these  words: 
"AUe  diese  grossen  Niederlander  eilen  weit  der  Poesie  ihrer  Zeit  voraus; 
Gebirge  und  Meer  finden  im  Wort  erst  100  Jahre  spater  ihrer  begeisterten 
Schilderer,  und  ein  in  sich  stimmungsvoU,  abgeschlossenes,  lyrisches  Land- 
schaftsbild  wirderst  am  Ende  des  achtzehnten  Jahrhunderts  in  der  deutschen 
Dichtung  geboren."  In  England,  it  will  be  observed,  the  love  of  Nature 
finds  earlier  and  more  abundant  expression  in  poetry  than  in  painting,  and 
its  completest  expression  in  Wordsworth's  poetry  precedes  its  complete 
expression  in  the  great  English  landscape  painters  of  the  early  nineteenth 
century.  See  also  for  brief  resume  of  "Landschaftsmalerei"  as  an  indica- 
tion mainly  of  the  increasing  knowledge  of  distant  lands,  new  forms  of  vege- 
tation, etc.,  Humboldt,  "Kosmos,"  II,  47-58. 


322  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

scenery  of  those  countries.  Draughtsmen  accompanied 
almost  every  pubHc  or  private  expedition  to  remote  regions. 
William  Pars  went  with  Dr.  Chandler  to  Greece,  1764-66, 
and  with  Lord  Palmerston  to  various  parts  of  the  continent 
in  1767.  Thomas  Hearne  was  in  the  Leeward  Islands  with 
Sir  Ralph  Payne  in  1771-75.  John  Cleveley  went  with  Sir 
Joseph  Banks  to  the  Hebrides  in  1772,  and  with  Captain 
Phipps  to  the  North  Sea  in  1774.  John  Webber  was  with 
Captain  Cook  on  his  last  voyage  to  the  South  Seas  in  1776-80. 
A.  M.  Devis  was  in  the  Orient  for  the  East  India  Company 
in  1788.  And  William  Alexander  went  with  Lord  Macartney 
to  China  in  1792.  These  men  brought  back  hundreds  of 
views,  many  of  which  were  exhibited  at  the  Royal  Academy 
and  later  appeared  as  illustrations  in  the  books  describing 
the  various  tours.  The  interest  aroused  by  these  pictures  is 
an  evidence  of  the  new  romantic  delight  in  whatever  is  remote, 
and  especially  in  the  landscape  characteristic  of  distant  lands. 
But  it  must  be  noted  that  the  importance  of  this  work  is 
lessened  by  the  two  facts  that  most  of  it  belongs  late  in 
the  century,  after  English  landscape  art  was  already  fairly 
well  established,  and  that,  in  the  second  place,  much  of 
it  is  of  merely  curious  interest  and  intended  to  show  the 
oddities  in  flora  or  fauna  or  in  human  life  in  the  various 
countries. 

The  second  point  is  the  prolonged  dominance  of  foreign 
models.  Walpole  in  his  ''Anecdotes  of  Painting"  (1762-71) 
said  quite  justly  that  English  artists  drew  "rocks  and  preci- 
pices and  castellated  mountains"  not  because  they  saw  such 
objects  in  England  but  because  "  Salvator  wandered  amongst 
Alps  and  Apennines."  But  the  artists  were  not  alone  in  pre- 
ferring to  look  at  Nature  through  Italian  spectacles.  Poets, 
too,  gave  praise  to  the  Poussins,  Salvator  Rosa,  and  Claude 
Lorrain.     When  Thomson  in   "The   Castle   of   Indolence" 


LANDSCAPE  PAINTING  323 

(1748)  had  the  cool  airy  halls  of  his  palace  decorated  with 

landscapes  he  chose 

WTiate'er  Lorraine  light-touch'd  with  softening  hue 
Or  savage  Rosa  dash'd  or  learned  Poussin  drew. 

A  quarter  of  a  century  later  we  find  these  artists  in  undimin- 
ished authority,  for  Mason  (''The  English  Garden,"  1772) 
declares  that  the  true  lawgivers  in  the  realm  of  the  picturesque 
are  Claude,  Salvator  Rosa,  and  Ruysdael.  An  interesting 
illustration  of  the  general  acceptance  of  the  Italian  or  Dutch 
masters  comes  in  1754  from  the  realm  of  house  decoration. 
In  that  year  Mr.  Jackson  of  Battersea  published  ''An  Essay 
on  the  Invention  of  Engraving  and  Printing  ....  and  the 
Application  of  it  to  the  Making  of  Paper  Hangings"  in  which 
he  advised,  in  order  to  show  "the  Taste  of  the  owner,"  "the 
introduction  into  the  Pannels  of  the  Paper"  of  prints  taken 
from  "  the  works  of  Salvator  Rosa,  Claude  Lorrain,  Gasper 
Poussin,  Berghem,  or  Wouverman  or  any  other  great  master" 
in  landscape.  But  perhaps,  after  all,  no  class  of  writers 
shows  more  clearly  the  tendency  to  regard  English  scenes 
from  the  point  of  view  of  Italian  landscape  art  than  do  the 
early  travelers.  Dr.  Brown  in  his  famous  "Letter  from  Kes- 
wick" says  that  to  give  a  complete  idea  of  the  beauty  of  that 
region  would  require  the  united  powers  of  Claude,  Salvator, 
and  Poussin.  "The  first  should  throw  his  delicate  sunshine 
over  the  cultivated  vales,  the  scattered  cots,  the  groves,  the 
lake,  and  wooded  islands.  The  second  should  dash  out  the 
horror  of  the  rugged  clifiFs,  the  steeps,  the  hanging  woods, 
and  foaming  waterfalls;  while  the  grand  pencil  of  Poussin 
should  crown  the  whole  with  the  majesty  of  impending  moun- 
tains." So,  too,  Mr.  Cradock  says  his  utmost  of  Snowdon 
when  he  boldly  declares  that  it  is  as  rich  a  region  to  him  as 
Tivoli  or  Frascati,  and  that  "the  romantic  imagination  of 
Salvator  Rosa  was  never  inspired  with  a  more  tremendous 


324  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

idea,  nor  his  extravagant  pencil  never  produced  a  bolder 
precipice."  Mr.  Hutchinson  in  praising  Keswick  and 
Skiddaw  says  that  ''  Claude  in  his  happiest  hour  never  struck 
out  a  finer  landscape."  In  a  summary  of  the  glories  of  the 
Lake  District  he  says,  ''The  painters  [sic]  of  Poussin  describe 
the  nobleness  of  Hulls-water;  the  works  of  Salvator  Rosa 
express  the  romantic  and  rocky  scenes  of  Keswick;  and  the 
tender  and  elegant  touches  of  Claude  Loraine,  and  Smith, 
pencil  forth  the  rich  variety  of  Windermere."  West's  "Guide" 
is  professedly  written  in  the  interests  of  landscape  painting, 
but  not  of  English  landscape  art,  though  by  1778  there  was 
strong  and  abundant  English  work.  In  each  scene  West  still 
finds  suggestions  of  Italian  painters  only.  Throughout  his 
tour  he  marked  many  "Stations"  from  which  the  artist  in 
search  of  material  could  get  hints  for  pictures.  On  Coniston 
Lake  he  would  find  verified  "the  delicate  touches  of  Claude," 
on  Windermere-water  "the  noble  scenes  of  Poussin,"  on 
Derwentwater  "the  stupendous,  romantic  ideas  of  Salvator 
Rosa."  A  traveler  across  Lancaster  Sands  would  see  the 
mountain  of  Ingleborough  from  "as  happy  a  point  of  view 
as  that  selected  by  Claude  in  his  picture  of  Soracte  on  the 
Tyber."  The  region  of  the  Langdale  Pikes  is  "as  grand  an 
assemblage  of  mountains,  dells,  and  chasms,  as  ever  the 
fancy  of  Poussin  suggested,  or  the  genius  of  Rosa  in- 
vented." 

Later  in  the  century  the  scenic  school  of  the  Italians 
partially  gave  way  before  the  growing  supremacy  of  the  Dutch 
artists.  In  1795  "Anthony  Pasquin"  in  a  critical  review 
of  the  pictures  exhibited  in  that  year  says. 

When  many  of  our  present  race  of  landscape  painters  wish  to  make 
a  study,  they  do  it  by  their  firesides;  they  take  an  old  perished  copy  of 
Wynants,  Ruysdael,  or  Hobbima,  or  a  damaged  copy  from  some  emi- 
nent artist,  and  compose  by  stealing  a  tree  from  one,  a  dock-leaf  from 


LANDSCAPE  PAINTING  325 

another,  and  a  waterfall  from  a  third.  By  this  means  we  have  Flemish 
landscapes  peopled  with  English  figures,  and  the  same  unvaried  scenes 
served  up  ad  infinitum. 

That  the  taste  of  the  purchasing  public  remained,  until 
late  in  the  century,  steadily  in  favor  of  foreign  work  may  be 
shown  in  various  ways.     Hogarth's  satires  on  the  rage  for 
''Old  Masters"  and  Foote's  comedy  "Taste"  (1752)  in  which 
a  picture  is  pronounced  excellent  until  discovered  to  be  by 
"an  Englishman  7iow  living^^  when  it  is  discarded  as  "not 
worth  house-room,"  are  significant  mid-century  attacks  on 
the    undiscriminating    demand    for    continental    pictures. 
Records  of  sale  by  the  celebrated  auctioneer  Longford  illus- 
trate the  same  fact.     In  1764  he  sold  a  collection  of  two 
hundred  and  fifty  paintings  belonging   to   Roger  Hearne. 
About  one  third  of  these  were  landscapes,  but  not  a  single 
English  artist,  unless  Van  de  Velde  should  be  so  counted,  is 
represented  in  the  list.     In  1765  the  pictures  of  "Mr.  Samuel 
Scott,  Painter  (who  is  retiring  into  the  Country) "  were  sold. 
Of  these  pictures  thirty-three  were  his  own  landscapes.     Of 
the  remaining  ninety  canvases  nearly  all  were  landscapes, 
but  again  with  no  English  names  in  the  list  except  Lambert 
and   Marlow.     In    1768   Mr.   Thomas   Payne's   collection, 
largely  made  up  of  landscapes,  has  one  each  by  Monamy, 
Swaine,  Lambert,  Scott,  and  three  by  Wootton.     In  1769  the 
pictures  of  Smith  of  Derby  were  sold.     He  had  five  by 
Brooking,  but  all  the  rest  were  his  own  unsold  canvases  of 
Lake  District,   Derbyshire,  and  Yorkshire  views.     George 
Barret's  sale  in  177 1  was  an  attempt  to  dispose  of  sixty-seven 
of  his  own  views  in  Wales,  Ireland,  and  the  Lake  District. 
He  advertised  "waterfalls,  effects  of  morning,  of  evening, 
of  moonlight,  a  remarkable  great  tree,  etc.,  etc."     It  is  not 
till  1790  that  we  come  upon  a  distinctively  English  collection. 
In  that  year  "Mr.  Serres,  Jun.,  Marine  Painter  (Going  to 


326  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

Italy)"  offered  for  sale  five  hundred  and  fifteen  pictures  nearly 
two  hundred  of  which  were  landscapes  by  English  artists. 
Thirty-two  artists  were  named  in  the  list.  This  slow  develop- 
ment of  English  appreciation  for  English  landscape  art  makes 
all  the  more  evident  the  vitality  of  the  impulse  that  led  to 
productivity  so  ample  and  varied  in  that  field. 


CHAPTER  VII 
GENERAL  SUMMARY 

During  the  period  from  Waller  to  Pope  the  general  feeling 
toward  Nature  was  one  of  indifference.  The  whole  emphasis 
was  on  man  in  his  higher  social  relations,  and  only  such  parts 
of  Nature  as  were  easily  subordinated  to  man  were  looked 
upon  with  pleasure.  The  facts  of  Nature  were  little  known. 
They  were  stated  in  terms  merely  imitative  and  conventional. 
The  new  feeling  toward  Nature,  as  exemplified  in  the  early 
nineteenth-century  poets,  especially  Wordsworth,  on  the 
contrary,  is  marked  by  full  and  first-hand  observation,  by  a  \  \ 
rich,  sensuous  delight  in  form,  color,  sound,  and  motion;  by  ^ 
a  strong  preference  for  the  wilder,  freer  forms  of  Nature's 
life,  by  an  enthusiasm  for  Nature  passionate  in  its  intensity, 
by  a  recognition  of  the  divine  life  in  Nature,  and  finally  by  a 
consciousness  of  the  interpenetration  of  that  life  and  the  life 
of  man.  At  the  beginning  of  the  eighteenth  century,  in 
poetry,  travels,  fiction,  painting,  and  gardens,  it  was  the 
classical  feeling  toward  Nature  that  predominated.  By  the 
end  of  the  century  the  new  feeling  had  found  abundant, 
varied,  and  original  statement.  The  change  is  a  great  one. 
From  Pope  to  Wordsworth,  from  Le  Notre  to  Rep  ton,  from 
Kneller  to  Turner,  from  Richardson  to  Mrs.  Radcliffe,  from 
Brand  to  Gilpin,  the  pendulum  swings.  Whether  men 
painted  pictures  or  made  gardens,  or  went  on  journeys,  or 
told  tales  of  love  and  adventure,  or  wrote  poems,  the  new 
spirit  was  at  work  within  them,  sending  them  forth  into  the 
world  of  Nature  and  bidding  them  bear  witness  to  her  power 
and  loveliness. 

Early  manifestations  of  the  new  spirit  did  not,  however, 

327 


328  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

find  exactly  contemporaneous  expression  in  these  various  art- 
forms.  Thomson's  "Seasons"  and  Pope's  "Fourth  Epistle" 
are  in  1726-31.  Gainsborough  and  Wilson  do  not  bring 
out  their  work  until  after  1755.  Thomas  Amory's  "John 
Buncle"  is  in  1756-66,  and  Brown's  "Keswick  Letter"  comes 
within  the  same  period.  Thus  the  decisive  beginnings  of 
the  new  spirit  in  painting,  fiction,  and  travels  are  about  con- 
temporary, but  are  thirty  years  behind  poetry  and  gardening. 
Furthermore,  the  time  between  the  decisive  beginnings  and 
the  final  full  expression  is  greatly  varied.  In  poetry  it  is 
seventy-three  years,  in  gardening  about  sixty-five,  in  paint- 
ing about  fifty,  in  fiction  not  over  twenty-five,  and  in  travels 
only  about  fifteen  years. 

In  spite  of  these  variations  in  date  there  seems  to  be  in 
each  art  the  same  general  order  of  development.  First  there 
is  a  dim  period  of  tentative,  unconscious,  or  apologetic  indi- 
cations of  a  new  spirit.  Then  some  original  mind  seizes 
upon  the  new  idea  and  gives  it  consistency  and  at  least 
partially  adequate  expression.  After  this  there  follows  a 
period  of  less  vigorous  but  widespread  and  varied  efforts  to 
find  a  statement  for  some  portions  of  the  new  thought.  Then 
a  master  mind  seems  to  feel  all  these  diffused,  struggling, 
half-expressed  conceptions  and  sums  them  up  in  the  final 
perfect  form.  In  the  poetry  of  Nature  these  stages  are  clearly 
marked  in  the  work  before  Thomson,  in  Thomson,  in  the 
period  from  Thomson  to  Wordsworth,  and  in  Wordsworth. 
In  painting  are  Wilson  and  Gainsborough  on  the  one  hand 
and  Turner  on  the  other.  In  gardening,  travels,  and  fiction 
we  find  the  periods  marked  respectively  by  Kent  and  Repton, 
Brown  and  Gilpin,  Amory  and  Mrs.  RadcHffe.  In  these 
three  art-forms,  especially  in  the  last  two,  we  do  not  find  the 
period  of  development  ending  in  the  work  of  consummate 
genius.     We  go  rather  from  a  meager  statement  to  a  state- 


GENERAL  SUM^IARY  329 

ment  that  is  full,  many-sided,  enthusiastic.  The  progress  is 
in  the  love  of  Nature  rather  than  in  the  power  of  adequate, 
final  expression.  The  development  in  gardening  is  more  in 
the  nature  of  a  series  of  experiments  open  to  wide  discussion, 
and  the  final  outcome  takes  the  form  given  it  by  the  man 
whose  study  of  past  failures  and  successes  has  led  him  to 
the  surest  comprehension  of  the  artistic  and  mechanical 
laws  involved.  A  glance  at  the  accompanying  table  will 
make  the  general  statement  clear,  the  main  point  being  that 
in  at  least  five  of  the  ways  in  which  men  express  their  ideas 
it  is  possible  to  trace  the  growth  of  a  complete  change  of  atti- 
tude toward  Nature.  The  poets  w^ho  helped  to  bring  about 
this  change  have  already  been  studied  in  detail,  but  -some 
further  general  statements  may  not  be  out  of  place  here. 

As  a  rule,  such  significant  poetry  of  Nature  as  appeared 
during  the  transition  period  was  the  work  of  men  w^ho  had 
spent  much  of  their  youth  in  the  country  or  in  country  vil- 
lages; it  was  practically  their  earliest  poetic  venture,  and 
usually  the  work  of  their  youth;  and,  in  most  cases  where 
there  was  an  extended  literary  career,  the  poetry  of  Nature 
speedily  gave  way  to  work  of  a  didactic  or  dramatic  sort,  in 
which  Nature  played  but  a  small  part.  To  any  such  general 
statement  there  would  be  of  course  important  exceptions. 
Blake,  for  instance,  was  a  town-bred  poet.  So  was  Collins, 
and  his  "  Ode  to  Evening"  is  not  his  earliest  work.  Cowper 
was  town-bred.  He  was  old  when  he  began  to  write,  and 
his  poetry  of  Nature  is  his  latest  rather  than  his  earliest  work. 
But,  taken  as  a  whole,  the  poetry  of  Nature  durmg  the  eight- 
eenth centur}^  bears  out  the  statement  as  made.  It  is  well 
illustrated  by  Armstrong,  who  was  bom  and  who  apparently 
spent  his  youth  in  Castleton,  a  little  village  in  the  wildest  part 
of  the  mountainous  country  around  the  Derbyshire  peaks, 
wrote  his  ''Winter"  before  he  was  fifteen,  went  to  Edinburgh 


330 


NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 


and  then  to  London  to  study,  and  wrote  as  the  work  of  his 
mature  years  a  didactic  poem  on  the  "Art  of  Preserving 


I    il    I    S    3    a 

^     >.      ^      ■>.      5;      t" 


-4 — 1 — h-H — i — I — I — I — I — I — j — I — 


H — I — I — I — I — I — k- 


^N. 


.  t    J    ■  I — ^ 


H \ i j ^ — d i :i 4 + i 1 1 1 H 


I  ^ 


I  ^  I 


Health."     Or  by  Dyer,  who  was  brought  up  in  South  Wales, 
wrote  "Grongar  Hill"  and  ''The  Country  Walk"  at  twenty- 


GENERAL  SUMMARY  331 

five,  went  up  to  London,  and  wrote  as  his  mature  work  "The 
Ruins  of  Rome"  and  "The  Fleece."     Or  by  Thomson,  who" 
lived  until  he  was  fifteen  in  Southdean,  a  little  hamlet  at  the 
foot  of   the   Cheviot  Hills,   the   last  of  whose   "Seasons" 
appeared  when  he  was  thirty  and  whose  later  work  was 
a  succession  of  dreary  tragedies.     Or   by   Akenside,   who, 
though  brought  up  in  Newcastle-on-Tyne,  made  frequent 
visits  to  the  country  during  his  youth,  wrote  "The  Pleasures 
of  the  Imagination"  at  seventeen  during  one  of  these  visits, 
and  in  his  after  life  wrote  much  prose  and  poetry  in  which 
there  is  no  hint  of  the  early  enthusiasm.     Allan  Ramsay 
lived  in  a  secluded  spot  among  the  Pentland  Hills  until  he 
was  fifteen,  and  his  earliest  important  poem,  "The  Gentle 
Shepherd,"  is  really  a  memory  picture.     William  Pattison 
spent  his  youth  at  Appleby,  a  village  on  the  Eden,  in  West- 
moreland, where  he  wrote  his  earliest  poems.     Mickel  spent 
his  youth  at  Langholme  on  the  Esk,  and  his  first  important 
poem,  'Tollio,"  written  at  eighteen,  was  in  memory  of  his  life 
there.     Bruce  was  brought  up  at  Kinneswood,  a  village  on 
Lochleven,  and  his  early  poetry  had  much  to  do  with  the 
scenery  about  that  place.     Beattie  spent  his  youth  at  Law- 
rencekirk  and  Fordoun  on  the  east  coast  of  Scotland,  and 
"The  Minstrel,"  his  first  important  poem,  is  a  record  of  his 
early  life.     It  would  certainly  be  a  misreading  of  these  facts 
to  infer  that  to  write  well  of  Nature  the  poet  must  have  been 
brought  up  in  the  country.     Genius  has  the  rare  gift  of  seeing 
a  very  little  and  straightway  knowing  a  great  deal.     It  would 
be  equally  wrong  to  infer  that  poets  write  of  Nature  when  they 
are  young  and  give  it  up  when  they  put  away  childish  things. 
The  import  of  these  facts  in  this  period  seems  to  be  merely 
that  there  was  a  genuine  and  widespread  love  of  Nature  on 
the  part  of  many  isolated  poets,  who,  by  the  circumstances 
of  their  lives,  knew  Nature  better  than  they  did  literature,  but 


332  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

that  this  love  was  not  sufficiently  robust  in  individual  cases  to 
withstand  the  cramping  influences  of  city  life  and  literary 
coteries.  The  developing  tradition  was  carried  on  not  so 
much  by  the  persistent  influence  of  a  few  as  by  the  constant 
springing  up  of  the  same  spirit  in  many  minds. 

In  a  transition  period  the  predominant  spirit  is  self- 
conscious,  authoritative,  and  full  of  maxims  drawn  from  its 
own  successes.  The  new  spirit  comes  in,  as  it  were,  by 
chance.  It  is  but  slightly  theoretic,  following  instinct  rather 
than  well-defined  principles.  In  its  first  stages  it  is  apologetic 
rather  than  aggressive.  These  characteristics,  on  the  whole, 
mark  the  love  of  Nature  in  the  early  eighteenth-century 
poetry.  There  are,  however,  occasional  indications  that 
some  poets,  at  least,  not  only  wrote  according  to  new  canons 
of  taste,  but  were  distinctly  conscious  of  their  revolt  from  the 
old.  So  early  as  1709  Ambrose  Philips  in  the  Preface  to  his 
"Pastorals"  justified  his  choice  of  country  themes  by  point- 
ing out  the  pleasing  effect  of  natural  scenes  on  the  mind. 
John  Gay's  enunciation  of  a  creed,  though  meant  as  a  satire, 
was  so  just  a  condemnation  of  existing  poetic  conventions, 
and  so  apt  a  prophecy  of  one  phase  of  the  new  spirit  that  it 
really  deserves  to  rank  among  revolutionary  statements  of 
theory.  Allan  Ramsay's  Preface  to  "The  Evergreens"  is 
equally  emphatic  in  its  scorn  of  classical  limitations,  and  it 
was  meant  in  downright  earnest.  The  thought  of  the 
Preface  finds  expression  several  times  in  his  poems  as 
well.  Dyer  gives  utterance  to  a  similar  scorn  of  Parnassus  in 
"The  Country  Walk."  Shenstone,  in  his  "Prefatory  Essay 
on  Elegy,"  shows  a  timid  but  perfectly  clear  recognition  of 
the  fact  that  he  is  breaking  away  from  poetical  canons. 
Mason  in  the  Preface  to  "  Elfrida"  says  that  he  has  introduced 
descriptions  with  a  purpose  of  rendering  the  drama  more 
pleasing.     Whitehead's    "Enthusiast"    with    its    elaborate 


GENERAL  SUMMARY  333 

statement  of  both  sides  of  the  case  in  man  versus  Nature  is  an 
important  indication  of  the  clearness  with  which  the  points 
of  the  controversy  were  at  that  time  recognized.  The 
strongest  and  most  detailed  statement  of  a  creed  came  about 
four  years  later  in  Joseph  Warton's  "  Essay  on  Pope"  (1756). 
Nothing  else  so  clear,  direct,  and  full  appeared  before 
the  Prefaces  of  Wordsworth.  After  Warton  it  is  not  so 
necessary  to  indicate  all  self-conscious  statements.  It  will 
suffice  briefly  to  indicate  Langhome's  statement  of  his  purpose 
in  writing,  Goldsmith's  vigorous  attacks  on  falseness  and 
affectation  in  poetry,  Beattie's  Wordsworthian  Preface  to 
"The  Minstrel,"  John  Scott's  criticism  on  existing  poetry  and 
his  statement  of  his  ow^n  aim  in  the  Preface  to  his  "Amoe- 
baean  Eclogues,"  Crabbe's  expressed  determination  to  treat 
of  Nature  as  it  really  is,  Cowper's  pleasure  in  the  fact  that 
his  knowledge  and  inspiration  come  straight  from  Nature 
and  his  persistent  reiteration  of  his  belief  in  the  superiority 
of  the  country  over  the  city,  and  finally  Bums'  many 
critical  remarks  on  the  essential  qualities  of  descriptive 
poetry. 

The  characteristics  of  the  poetry  of  Nature  that  was  grow- 
ing up  during  the  eighteenth  century  have  been  already  indi- 
cated in  one  way  and  another,  but  it  seems  necessary  here 
to  gather  them  up  into  general  statements.  The  easiest  and 
clearest  way  will  be  to  make  a  somewhat  detailed  summary 
of  such  traits  of  this  poetry  as  seem  to  foreshadow  the  later 
treatment  of  Nature,  especially  as  exemplified  in  Words- 
worth. In  the  comparison  I  keep  mainly  to  Wordsworth 
both  for  the  sake  of  simplicity,  and  because,  though  in 
romantic  periods  each  poet  works  out  his  own  salvation  along 
original  and  self-determined  lines,  yet  Wordsworth  more 
nearly  than  any  other  poet  expresses  the  variety  and  com- 
plexity of  interest  in  the  new  feeling  toward  Nature. 


334  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

'•  Wordsworth  said  that  a  part  of  his  endowment  as  a  poet 
was  a  peculiar  openness  to  sense  impressions,  and  that  this 
endowment  was  cultivated  by  his  environment  in  youth  until 
the  real  facts  of  Nature  were  perceived  by  him  with  fulness 
and  accuracy.  In  his  wholesale  condemnation  of  the  period 
between  "  Paradise  Lost "  and  "The  Seasons"  the  chief  count 
in  the  indictment  is  the  absence  of  new  images  drawn 
from  Nature.  Full,  accurate,  first-hand  knowledge  of  Nature 
is  then  with  Wordsworth  a  sine  qua  non,  a  basis  on  which 
interpretation  must  rest.  During  the  eighteenth  century  no 
one  man  had  Wordsworth's  inevitable  ear  or  practiced  eye, 
but  the  whole  impression  made  is  that  men  were  at  last  out  of 
doors,  looking  and  listening  for  themselves.,^  Each  man  sees 
many  facts  not  before  noted,  and  collectively  the  poetry  of  the 
period  presents  a  great  body  of  natural  phenomena  of  all  sorts. 
Poets,  artists,  travelers,  writers  of  fiction,  unite  to  swell  the 
stock  of  facts  about  the  external  world.  Dorothy  Words- 
worth's "Journals"  show  with  what  delight  she  and  her  brother 
dwelt  upon  the  baldest  statement  of  the  actual  facts  of  Nature. 
Gray  in  his  "Letters,"  John  Scott  in  his  "Eclogues,"  show 
this  same  pleasure  in  simply  cataloguing  the  lovely  facts  of  the 
out-door  world.  Lady  Winchilsea,  Gay,  Thomson,  Dyer, 
Cowper,  Burns,  all  the  landscape  painters  from  Wilson  to 
Girtin,  Mrs.  Smith  and  Mrs.  Radcliffe,  are  but  leaders  of 
the  many  who  were  striving  to  make  report  of  what  they 
found  in  waters  and  skies,  in  field,  mountain,  and  plain.  The 
wide  range  of  these  facts  is  astonishing.  The  knowledge  of 
the  poet  is  no  longer  confined  to  parks  and  gardens,  to  the 
mild  and  lovely  aspects  of  Nature.  His  aroused  curiosity 
pushes  him  out  into  new  realms  of  inquiry.  All  kinds  of 
Nature,  animate  and  inanimate,  wild  and  tame,  remote  and 
close  at  hand,  attract  interested  attention. 

The  mere  mass  and  variety  of  this  accumulated  knowledge 


aA 


GENERAL  SUMIVIARY  335 

is  sufficiently  significant  in  its  bearing  on  the  development 
of  a  new  taste  for  Nature,  but  a  further  general  question  arises 
as  to  the  accuracy  and  delicacy  of  the  observation.  There 
certainly  was  none  of  the  scientific  spirit  that  would  feel  the 
charm  of  bare  exactness,  and  there  was  hardly  any  of  Words- 
worth's feeling  that  to  misrepresent  a  fact  of  Nature  would 
be  sacrilege.  Facts  were,  indeed,  often  noted  in  a  loose,  care- 
less way,  as  if  of  slight  importance.  But  taken  as  a  whole  the 
observation  bears  the  mark  of  the  eye  on  the  object.  From 
Lady  Winchilsea  to  Bowles  every  poet  who  has  been  esteemed 
noteworthy  in  the  study  of  Nature  gives  the  impression  that 
he  speaks  from  personal  knowledge,  and  no  poetry  can  make 
that  impression  unless  it  is  in  its  main  lines  true.  Delicacy 
of  observation  is  another  matter. 

What  the  eighteenth-century  poets  did  was  to  give  truth- 
ful expression  to  very  many  natural  facts  of  a  kind  fairly 
obvious  to  an  age  well  versed  in  the  lore  of  field  and  wood ;  but 
new  to  an  age  just  emerged  from  the  gates  of  a  park.  It  is 
observation  of  this  abundant,  truthful,  obvious  sort  that  we 
find  in  Ambrose  Philips,  Gay,  Ramsay,  Shenstone,  John 
Scott,  and  largely  this  even  in  Thomson.  The  commonest 
facts  of  Nature,  the  blue  sky,  wild  flowers  on  a  rocky  ledge, 
rough  little  streams,  were  a  wonder  and  a  delight.  Dis- 
crimination comes  after  general  and  obvious  facts  have  been 
accepted  and  assimilated.  It  is  inevitable,  even  setting  aside 
their  different  temperaments,  that  Cowper  should  have  more 
of  it  than  Thomson.  The  strange  thing  is  that  in  the  early 
stages  of  the  poetry  of  Nature  we  should  find  any  observation 
so  close  and  delicate  as  that  in  the  study  of  night  by  Lady 
Winchilsea,  of  burns  and  mountain  pools  by  Allan  Ramsay, 
of  winter  skies  and  ice-burdened  streams  by  Armstrongs  or 
as  that  in  Thomson's  sunset  after  rain.  Dyer's  wide  views  and 
homely  bits  of  country  life,  Collins'  evening,  Gray's  skylark 


S3^  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY  . 

and  song-thrush,  Thomas  Warton's  opening  spring,  Logan's 
cuckoo,  and  Scott's  trees. 

The  fulness  and  accuracy  of  the  eighteenth-century  study 
of  Nature  may  be  further  seen  by  a  brief  analysis  of  the  sense 
impressions  most  frequently  noted. 

Wordsworth  is  said  to  have  been  physically  deficient  in  the 
sense  of  smell,  hence  the  noticeable  absence  of  odors  in  his 
poems  may  be  accounted  for.  But  it  is  doubtless  true  of  all 
poetry  that  fragrances  are  more  scantily  recorded  than  are 
other  facts,  and  that  there  is  seldom  any  delicate  dis- 
crimination between  various  sorts  of  sweet  odors.  For  this 
reason  such  slight  study  of  odors  as  we  find  in  the  transition 
poetry  is  the  more  to  be  dwelt  upon.  There  are  certainly 
not  infrequent  observations  showing  close  knowledge.  J. 
Philips  notes  the  faint  sweetness  of  cowslips;  Relph  speaks 
of  the  odor  of  the  "fresh  prumrose  on  the  furst  of  May;" 
Dyer  and  Shenstone  of  the  fragrance  of  brakes;  Dyer  of 
sweet-smelling  honeysuckles;  Shenstone,  Thomas  Warton, 
andCowperof  the  fragrant  woodbine;  J.Philips  and  Mickle 
of  scented  orchards;  Cowper  calls  attention  to  the  odor  of 
limes  and  the  fresh  smell  of  turf;  Lady  Winchilsea  speaks 
of  the  "aromatic  pain"  from  the  odor  of  a  jonquil,  the 
"potent  fragrance"  of  which  is  recognized  also  by  Thomson. 
Two  odors  frequently  mentioned  are  of  "the  perfuming 
flowery  bean"  celebrated  first  by  John  Philips,  then  by  Gay, 
Thomson,  Savage,  Shenstone,  and  Joseph  Warton;  and  the 
fragrance  of  hay  noted  by  Thomson,  Gay,  Ramsay,  Savage, 
Potter,  Relph,  Thomas  Warton,  and  Mickle.  When  homely, 
unusual  odors,  like  that  of  the  bean,  are  noticed  there  is  often 
exceptional  vividness  of  statement.  What  took  rank  in  the 
poet's  mind  as  his  own  discovery  brought  out  a  natural  fresh- 
ness of  phrase.  One  other  fact  frequently  noted  is  that  odors 
are  strongest  at  morning  or  evening  or  after  a  rain.     These 


GENER.\L  SUMMARY  337 

specific  references  are  of  real  importance  in  showing  new 
powers  of  perception,  but  it  must  be  admitted  that  in  general 
the  use  of  odors  was  of  the  conventional  sort,  referring  rather 
vaguely  to  sweet  breezes  blowing  over  flowery  fields. 

The  sensitiveness  to  sound  so  often  remarked  in  Words- 
w^orth's  poems  is  a  characteristic  of  the  poetry  of  Nature 
throughout  the  century  before  Wordsworth.  The  music  of 
Nature  was  a  source  of  widespread  delight.  The  "  pleasant 
noise  of  waters,"  for  instance,  receives  some  notice  from  nearly 
every  poet  in  the  list,  while  in  travels  and  fiction  some  of 
the  most  effective  passages  are  on  the  sounds  of  rapid  streams 
and  waterfalls.  In  poetry  the  old  words  "warbling," 
"tinkling,"  and  "murmuring,"  are  still  much  used,  but 
Ramsay's  rill  that  "makes  a  singin  din,"  Thomson's  roused- 
up  river  that  "thunders"  through  the  rocks,  Mallet's  river 
wdth  its  "sounding  swxep,"  Collins'  "brawling  springs," 
and  Cowper's  "chiming  rills"  are  a  few  of  the  phrases  that 
mark  a  more  individual  and  personal  way  of  listening. 
One  of  Wordsworth's  often-quoted  lines  on  sound  has  to  do 
with  the  greater  distinctness  of  the  song  of  mountain  streams 
by  night.  Mr.  Heard  gives  this  passage  as  an  instance  of 
Wordsworth's  peculiarly  close  observation.  But  the  clear- 
ness with  which  falling  or  running  water  is  heard  at  night  had 
been  noted  at  least  six  times  in  the  literature  before  Words- 
w^orth.  Lady  Winchilsea  mentioned  it  in  her  "Revery." 
Beattie  speaks  of  waterfalls  heard  from  afar  amid  the  lonely 
night,  and  again  of  the  quiet  evening  when  naught  but  the 
torrent  is  heard  on  the  hill.  The  lines  in  John  Brown's 
*'  Rhapsody"  have  already  been  quoted,  as  also  his  "Letter"  in 
which  he  notes  the  variety  of  sounds  from  distant  waterfalls 
as  one  of  the  attractions  of  a  walk  at  night.  And  Gray  also 
speaks  of  the  murmur  of  many  waterfalls  not  audible  in  the 
day  time.     Several  other  authors,  as  Dyer  and  Mallet,  have 


33^  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

practically  the  same  idea  when  they  mention  the  unusual 
clearness  of  the  sound  of  falling  water  in  a  breathless  noon, 
or  in  the  depths  of  a  silent  forest. 

The  sounds  made  by  winds  are  also  often  and  particularly 
noted.  They  sigh  through  reeds,  they  make  a  remote  and 
hollow  noise  in  "wintery  pines,"  they  murmur  through  the 
poplars,  they  rustle  lightly  over  "deep  embattled  ears  of 
corn,"  they  join  in  concert  with  woods  and  waters,  or  they 
sweep  in  mighty  harmonies  through  ancient  forests.  The 
whispering  breezes,  and  dying  gales  of  the  classical  poetry 
do  not  often  occur.  Brown  in  his  "Letter"  shows  how 
deeply  he  was  impressed  by  the  roaring  of  the  winds  through 
the  mountains,  and  the  one  passage  in  which  Dr.  Johnson 
showed  any  appreciation  of  wild  Nature  is  a  description  of 
the  combined  sounds  of  streams  and  wind  on  a  stormy  night 
in  Scotland.  A  characteristic  passage  is  Thomson's  fine 
description  of  thunder  among  the  mountains.  Wordsworth, 
from  the  peculiar  delicacy  of  his  perceptions  and  perhaps 
from  his  contemplative  Nature,  was  deeply  sensitive  to  the 
silences  in  the  world  about  him.  There  is  some  though  but 
little  indication  of  a  similar  pleasure  in  preceding  poetry 
One  of  the  best  passages  is  Thomson's  description  of  the 
boding  silence  before  a  storm.  This  has,  however,  much  less  of 
the  real  Wordsworthian  spirit  than  has  Brown's  conception  of 
the  silence  that  spoke  from  the  starry  vault,  the  shadowy  cliffs, 
the  motionless  groves,  and  the  faint  mirror  of  the  placid  lake. 

Of  sounds  from  animate  Nature  the  emphasis  is  of  course 
on  birds.  But  the  feathered  choir  of  the  classical  period  has 
been  resolved  into  distinct  species,  each  with  a  voice  of  its 
own.  The  nightingale  is  not  supplanted  but  she  is  no  longer 
a  monopolist  in  the  realms  of  the  muses.  In  this  transition 
poetry  the  cuckoo  takes  an  interesting  place.  Wordsworth's 
address  to  the  bird  as  "the  darling  of  the  spring"  gives  the 


GENERAL  SUMMARY  339 

association  of  ideas  found  in  most  of  the  early  poems.     The 
cuckoo   is   the   harbinger   of   spring.      Armstrong   and   A. 
Phihps  have  the  loud  note  of  the  cuckoo  as  one  of  the  first 
hints  of  the  opening  year,  and  Thomson's  symphony  of 
spring  is  introduced  by  "the  first  note  the  hollow  cuckoo 
sings."     Mendes  says  it  is   "the  cuckoo  that  announceth 
spring,"  and  Gray  speaks  of  the  cuckoo's  note  as  part  of  "  the 
untaught    harmony    of    spring."     The    peculiarity    of    the 
cuckoo's  note  is  also  often  mentioned.     Other  birds  have 
many  notes,  says  John  Cunningham,  "the  cuckoo  has  but 
two."     Logan,  as  Wordsworth  after  him,  records  the  fact 
that  the  bird  is  usually  unseen,  and  both  speak  of  the  school- 
boy's surprise  as  the  strange  cry  falls  on  his  ear.     The  lark, 
the  nightingale,  and  the  linnet  are  frequently  mentioned,  but 
usually  in  terms  somewhat  conventional.     They  had  been  in 
poetry  so  long  that  a  distinct  effort  would  have  been  needed 
to  think  of  them  under  new  phrases.     To  be  released  from 
the  captivity  of  a  stock  diction  and  conventional  sentiment 
they  waited  for  Shelley  and  Keats  and  Wordsworth.     It  is  in 
observations  on  birds  not  counted  poetical  property  that  we 
find  fresh  and  exact  expression.     A  mark  of  the  new  spirit 
is  the  pleasure  in  such  sounds  as  the  call  of  the  curlew,  the 
boom  of  the  bittern,  the  chattering  of  magpies,  the  caw  of 
rooks,  the  piping  of  quails,  the  scream  of  jays,  the  clang  of 
seamews,  the  shrill  clamor  of  cranes,  the  shriek  of  the  gull, 
the  whisde  of  plovers,  the  whir  of  the  partridge.     To  hear 
such  sounds  the  poet  must  wander  over  moors,  by  sedgy 
lakes,  along  rough  shores,  far  enough  from  trim  parks.     To 
bring  such  sounds  into  poetry  marked  a  great  revolution  in 
taste  from  the  days  of  the  lorn  nightingale  and  the  plaintive 
turtle.     As  a  whole  we  may  say  that  the  treatment  of  sound 
in  eighteenth-century  poetry  is  abundant,  accurate,  and  often 
very  effective. 


340  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

The  process  of  passing  from  general  to  specific  statements 
as  a  result  of  increased  knowledge  shows  itself  again  in  the 
use  of  color.  The  universal  paint  of  the  classical  school  has 
been  resolved  into  some  of  its  constituent  elements.  These  are 
not  many,  however,  and  there  is  not  much  nice  discrimination 
into  shades  and  tints.  The  colors  most  often  observed  are 
green,  blue,  yellow  or  gold,  purple,  red  or  crimson,  and  brown, 
the  order  given  being  the  order  of  their  frequency.  Purple 
is  used  less  frequently  than  in  the  classical  poetry  and  usually 
has  some  real  artistic  significance.  Yellow,  a  comparatively 
new  word,  is  used  often  of  harvests,  of  trees  in  autumn,  of 
moonlight,  and  of  various  sunlight  effects.  Dyer  gave  early 
prominence  to  the  word  as  an  epithet  applied  to  Nature. 
Brown  is  applied  in  somewhat  the  conventional  manner  to 
streams  and  shadows.  Thomson,  Dyer,  Savage,  and  Cowper 
made  the  most  effective  use  of  color,  and  it  is  important  to 
observe  that  their  advance  consisted  not  so  much  in  seeing 
many  more  colors  than  had  been  seen  before,  as  in  discovering 
color  in  many  more  objects  than  formerly.  They  did  not 
merely  see  that  "all  above  is  blue  and  all  below  is  green." 
They  saw  the  blue  heavens,  but  they  saw,  too,  the  blue  of 
"sky  dyed  plumbs,"  of  mists,  of  distant  hills,  of  streams  and 
bays,  of  ice-films,  of  the  halcyon's  wing,  of  curling  smoke,  of 
the  lightning  flash.  The  endive,  the  lavender,  the  lilac,  the 
violet,  the  harebell,  the  heath-flower,  are  singled  out  as  blue. 
And  Dyer  speaks  of  the  blue  color  of  the  poplars,  and  Dalton 
of  blue  slate  roofs.  Not  merely  the  general  green  of  a  summer 
landscape  is  commented  upon,  but  there  are  closer  observa- 
tions concerning  the  varying  shades  of  green  as  the  trees  are 
massed  together.  The  russet  tints  brought  out  in  green  tree 
tops  at  sunset,  the  funereal  green  of  yews,  the  yellow-green 
in  a  sunset  sky,  the  yellow  tinge  in  green  grass  almost  ready 
for  the  scythe,  the  glossy  green  of  the  holly,  the  deep  green  of 


GENERAL  SUM^URY  341 

box,  the  contrasting  green  of  elm,  oak,  and  maple,  are  some 
typical  observations. 

The  use  of  color,  however,  seems,  on  the  whole,  in  spite  of 
its  abundance  and  picturesqueness,  hardly  so  varied  and 
individual  as  the  use  of  sound. 

A  division  into  colors  and  sounds  leaves  many  sorts  of 
observation  unnoted,  and  frequently  these  are  of  great  im- 
portance as  indicating  close  knowledge;  but  they  have  been 
so  often  commented  upon  in  the  study  from  author  to  author 
that  even  a  suggestive  recapitulation  is  hardly  needed  here. 
Enough  has  been  called  to  mind  to  show  that  there  was  much 
knowledge  of  the  external  world,  and  that  much  of  this 
knowledge  was  reported  in  words  so  direct  and  truthful  that 
they  must  have  come  from  personal  experience. 

In  the  classical  period  we  have  seen  that  only  the  milder 
forms  of  Nature  were  cared  for.  Wordsworth  was,  on  the 
other  hand,  essentially  the  poet  of  mountains,  lakes,  and 
streams.  It  will  be  of  interest  to  note  the  attitude  of  the  tran- 
sition poetry  toward  the  various  kinds  of  Nature.  And  first 
we  may  sum  up  the  evidences  of  mountain  enthusiasm. 

In  the  first  fifty  years  of  the  century  we  have  only  the 
expressions  of  pleasure  in  climbing  mountains  or  hills  by  J. 
Philips,  Gay,  and  Dyer;  the  various  descriptive  references 
in  Ramsay  and  in  Mallet;  Boydell's  crude  work  in  Wales, 
and  Paul  Sandby's  sketches  in  the  Highlands.  Ramsay  and 
Mallet  show  a  consciousness  of  mountains,  and  evidently 
regard  them  as  noticeable  and  picturesque  elements  of  a 
scene,  and  Dyer  is  of  distinct  importance  because  of  his 
lingering  pleasure  in  the  beautiful  views  opening  up  before 
him  as  he  climbs  the  mountain,  and  especially  because  of  his 
poetic  comprehension  of  mountain  solitudes.  But  it  is 
during  the  next  thirty-five  years  (1750-85)  that  we  find 
the  most  adequate  eighteenth-century  treatment  of  moun- 


342  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

tains.  During  this  period  Brown,  Pennant,  Young,  Gray, 
and  Gilpin  visited  Scotland,  Wales,  and  the  English  Lakes, 
and  wrote  of  mountains  with  an  enthusiasm  hardly  equaled 
in  the  succeeding  century.  In  fiction  were  Amory's  eulogy 
of  Westmoreland,  and  his  exaggerated  pictures  of  Cum- 
berland, and  Smollett's  description  of  the  country  round 
Loch  Leven.  In  painting,  Boydell,  Devis,  Sandby,  Bellers, 
Wilson,  Barret,  Farington,  and  John  Cozens  were  studying 
mountain  scenery  in  Scotland,  in  northern  England,  in  Wales, 
Ireland,  and  in  the  Alps.  In  poetry  we  have  Coventry's 
address  to  Vaughan  on  mountain  climbing;  Dalton's  apos- 
trophe to  Skiddaw;  Brown's  rhapsody  on  the  mountains  and 
lakes  of  Westmoreland;  the  mountain  scenery  in  Gray's 
"Bard"  and  the  poems  of  "Ossian;"  the  many  descriptive 
references  in  Dyer's  "Fleece,"  Jago's  "Edge  Hill,"  Mickle's 
"  Almada  Hill"  and  "May  Day,"  and  Scott's  "  Amwell;"  and 
Beattie's  study  of  the  influence  of  mountains  on  a  poetic  mind. 
During  the  last  twenty-five  years  of  the  century  there  is,  in 
poetry,  a  curious  apparent  cessation  of  mountain  interest. 
The  most  highly  poetic  minds,  Blake,  Cowper,  and  Burns, 
have  none  of  it.  Crabbe  does  not  touch  upon  mountains. 
Lesser  poets,  except  Bowles  at  the  very  end  of  the  cen- 
tury, are  equally  silent.  This  is  not,  however,  true  in  other 
realms  of  art.  Mountain  scenery  is  still,  during  these  years, 
a  large  element  in  romances,  and  in  travels,  and  many  artists 
are  sketching  in  the  picturesque  regions  opened  up  to  them 
by  earlier  students  of  mountain  landscapes. 

Many  lovers  of  Nature  and  of  poetry  have  commented  with 
surprise  on  the  slow  development  of  the  poetic  appreciation 
of  mountains.  It  is,  perhaps,  even  more  strange  that  English 
poetry  should  have  been  still  slower  in  its  discovery  of  the 
ocean.  It  is  as  if  English  poets  from  Dryden  to  Byron  had 
all  lived  inland.     Even  in  Wordsworth,   in  spite  of  some 


GENERAL  SUMMARY  343 

wonderful  lines,  there  is  no  treatment  of  the  ocean  at  all 
comparable  to  his  study  of  mountains.  In  the  classical  age 
the  ocean  was  a  dreary  waste.  In  the  transition  poetry  we 
do  not  find  much  more  knowledge  or  appreciation.  The  one 
quality  of  the  ocean  that  receives  anything  like  adequate 
expression  is  its  boundlessness.  Characteristic  lines  are  by 
John  G.  Cooper. 

In  unconfined  perspective  send  thy  gaze 
Disdaining  limit  o'er  the  green  expanse 
Of  ocean. 

Armstrong  says  that  the  "floating  wilderness" 

Scorns  our  miles  and  calls  Geography 
A  shallow  prier. 

Mickle  looks  upon  the  awful  solitude  of  ocean  and  his 
imagination  is  stirred  by 

the  last  dim  wave  in  boundless  space 
Involved  and  lost. 

These  are  the  best  lines  I  have  found.  The  chief  expres- 
sions of  pleasure  in  the  ocean  are  Gay's  mild  delight  in  a  sun- 
set across  the  sea,  and  subsequent  moonlight  effects,  and 
Beattie's  pleasing  dread  as  he  seeks  the  shore  to  listen  to  the 
wide-weltering  waves.  We  find  in  Cowper's  letters  a  more 
appreciative  passage  on  the  ocean  than  occurs  in  any  of  the 
poetry.  The  most  sincere  ocean  enthusiasm  is  in  Mrs. 
Radcliffe's  romances.  Travelers,  even  those  who  went 
along  the  coast  of  Wales  and  among  the  Scottish  islands  or  to 
the  Isle  of  Wight,  say  little  of  the  sea.  The  ocean  was,  in 
fact,  much  such  a  burden  as  Sterne's  plain.  When  the  poet 
had  once  said  that  it  was  big  and  awful  his  stock  of  impres- 
sions was  exhausted.  In  painting,  the  ocean  was  not  entirely 
ignored,  but  in  this  province,  too,  there  was  meagerness  of 
conception  and  expression.  The  ocean  waited  for  Turner 
and  Byron  and  Shelley. 


344  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

One  of  the  interesting  characteristics  of  the  love  of  Nature 
in  the  eighteenth  century  is  a  dehght  in  wide  views.  What 
had  in  the  classical  period  "tired  the  travelling  eye,"  with 
the  dawning  of  the  new  spirit  gave  satisfaction.  It  was  in 
accord  with  the  mental  revolt  against  close  boundaries  of 
any  sort.  From  the  day  when  John  Philips  ventured  to 
express  some  pleasure  in  the  view  from  a  hill,  and  Gay 
climbed  Cotton  Hill  to  raise  his  mind  nearer  heaven,  and 
Dyer  spent  days  in  studying  with  an  artist's  eye  the  colors  and 
forms  of  the  view  from  Grongar  Hill,  to  the  time  when  Beattie 
eagerly  climbed  the  rugged  steeps  of  Scottish  mountains  so 
that  he  might  see  the  morning  mists  rolling  and  tumbling  over 
the  rough  hills  beneath  him,  do  we  find  this  pronounced 
delight  in  wide  views.  Even  poets  who  show  no  great  love 
for  mountains,  as  Thomson,  Mallet,  Collins,  the  Wartons, 
Langhorne,  Mickle,  and  John  Scott,  and  even  poets  of  con- 
fessedly tame  scenery  as  Cowper,  love  "green  heights"  and 
extended  prospects.  To  the  expression  of  this  feeling  Amory 
and  Mrs.  Radcliffe,  Brown,  Young,  and  Pennant  make  large 
contributions.  This  feeling  shows  itself  also  in  gardening. 
The  cutting-down  of  tall  hedges,  the  opening-up  of  vistas, 
were  a  result  of  the  change  of  taste  and  a  contribution  to  it. 

We  have  seen  that  during  the  classical  poetry  the  skies  in 
favor  were  cloudless  and  that  of  all  sky  phenomena  the  rain- 
bow excited  most  attention.  In  the  transition  poetry  we  find 
much  of  this  love  of  fair  summer  skies  and  expressed  some- 
times with  a  new  freshness  as  when  Dyer  wishes  nothing 
above  his  head  but  "the  roof  on  which  the  gods  do  tread,"  or 
when  Ramsay  looks  with  joy  upon  "the  lift's  unclouded 
blue,"  or  when  the  clear  gladness  of  heaven  shines  down 
from  the  lovely  skies  of  Blake.  But  on  the  whole,  references 
to  the  serene  day-time  sky  are  conventional.  It  is  another 
illustration  of  the  fact  that  such  aspects  of  Nature  as  were 


GENERAL  SUMMARY  345 

already  known  and  had  come  to  be  spoken  of  after  a  set 
fashion  were  slow  to  be  emancipated  into  a  new  phraseology. 
Better  work  is  done  in  describing  what  Coleridge  calls  the 
"goings-on"  of  the  sky.  Thomson  knew  the  sky  in  all  its 
phases.  Parnell  describes  well  the  airy  tumult  of  clouds  after 
a  storm.  Mallet  has  one  or  two  rather  effective  studies  of  a 
stormy  sky.  One  of  Beattie's  best  descriptions  is  of  a  shifting 
cloudy  sky  on  a  windy  autumn  day,  and  he  has  other  effective 
cloud  studies.  But  taken  in  the  mass  the  material  is  scanty 
and  not  of  great  value.  It  was  Wordsworth-  and  Shelley 
who  first  gave  adequate  expression  to  the  mysterious  and 
varied  charm  of  the  day-time  sky. 

The  love  of  the  night  sky  and  of  night  itself  is  first  found  in 
Lady  Winchilsea,  and  for  close  observation  and  delicate  feel- 
ing there  is  nothing  better  throughout  the  century.  There 
is,  however,  much  use  of  night,  moonlight,  and  stars  in  a  new 
and  appreciative  fashion.  In  Gay's  "  Dione  "  there  are  several 
attractive  litde  moonlight  pictures.  Parnell  was  impressed 
by  the  depth,  the  serenity,  and  the  silence  of  a  starry  sky  on  a 
clear  night.  Coventry  observes  how  fast  the  moon  travels 
through  light  clouds  as  if  bent  on  a  journey,  while  in  clear 
weather  she  sits  steady  empress  of  the  skies.  Joseph  Warton 
notes  the  shining  of  hills  and  streams  under  the  light  of  a  full 
moon.  Mickle  has  some  beautiful  lines  on  both  moon  and 
stars  as  they  rise  from  behind  certain  favorite  hills.  He 
walks  much  at  night  and  loves  to  watch  the  trembling  line 
of  light  from  the  moon  as  it  shines  across  the  lake,  or  the 
soft  effect  of  the  yellow  moonlight  sleeping  on  the  hills. 
Beattie  stays  out  all  night  to  watch  the  aspects  of  the  sky  till 
the  dawn  of  day.  Morning  and  evening  twilight  are  less 
often  spoken  of.  There  is  certainly  nothing  else  in  the 
century  to  compare  with  Collins'  "Evening."  Sunset  and 
sunrise  are  often  described,  but  nowhere  with  more  general 


346  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

effectiveness  than  in  Thomson,  or  with  more  minute  color 
study  than  in  Savage. 

Closely  connected  with  the  knowledge  of  the  sky  is  the  new 
feeling  toward  storms.  In  the  classical  poetry  they  had  been 
ignored  or  used  as  similes  for  disaster.  But  one  of  the  first 
evidences  of  a  new  spirit  was  in  the  appreciative  description 
of  winter  storms,  as  in  Riccaltoun,  Armstrong,  and  Thomson. 
The  early  descriptions  and  the  multiplicity  of  storms  in 
Thomson  and  Mallet  give  at  first  the  impression  that 
this  element  held  a  larger  place  in  poetry  than  it  really 
did.  Ramsay  has  some  good  lines  on  winter  storms.  There 
is  an  admirable  stanza  in  Collins'  "Ode  to  Liberty,"  and 
another  in  Thomas  Warton's  "Grave  of  King  Arthur."  In 
Beattie's  "Minstrel,"  and  in  several  of  Burns'  poems  there 
are  expressions  of  delight  in  the  fierce  play  of  the  elements, 
but  that  exhausts  the  list  of  notable  passages.  It  is  only  in 
Beattie  that  we  find  any  of  the  modern  sense  of  kinship  be- 
tween the  tumult  of  life  and  Nature's  fierce  conflicts,  and  the 
imaginative  force  of  a  passage  like  that  in  "The  Excursion" 
where  the  Wanderer  longs  to  be  a  spirit  and  so  mingle  with 
primal  energies  in  their  mightiest  activities,  or  the  lyric  passion 
of  a  cry  like  that  in  Shelley's  apostrophe  to  the  West  Wind, 
are  not  even  hinted  at. 

The  most  pronounced  change  came  with  reference  to  these 
grander,  wilder  aspects  of  Nature.  We  have  still  to  note  the 
treatment  of  the  gentle  pleasant  things  of  Nature,  as  birds, 
flowers,  trees. 

There  was,  through  the  classical  period,  abundant  delight, 
in  a  general  way,  in  meadows  bursting  into  bloom,  and 
in  bright  blossoms  in  the  garden.  The  use  of  the  words 
"flowery,"  "adorned,"  "decked,"  "enameled,"  etc.,  usually 
had  reference  to  fields  of  flowers  thought  of  in  a  vague,  pleas- 
ant way.    The  changes  that  come  during  the  transition  poetry 


GENER.\L  SUMMARY  347 

are  a  resolving  of  the  general  into  the  specific,  a  concentra- 
tion of  attention  on  English  flowers,  and  a  greatly  increased 
knowledge  of  individual  flowers.  The  rose  and  the  lily  often 
give  place  to  homelier  blooms  as  those  of  peas  and 
beans,  the  bramble  rose,  butter  flowers,  clover,  heath-bells, 
crowfoot,  the  tangled  vetch,  the  mandrake,  the  thistle.  The 
increased  minuteness  of  observation  shows  itself  in  such 
garden  studies  as  we  find  in  Thomson  and  Cowper.  A 
feeling  of  personal  relationship  toward  flowers  finds  its 
highest  and  sweetest  expression  in  Burns'  "Daisy." 

In  the  classical  poetry  trees  in  general  are  an  important 
part  of  the  stock-in-trade.  The  new  feeling  shows  itself  in 
a  growing  tendency  to  think  of  trees  as  individuals.  In  a 
landscape  trees  are  mentioned  by  name.  The  thin  leav'd 
ash,  whispering  poplars,  the  glossy  rind'd  beech,  venerable 
oaks  tossing  giant  arms,  waving  elms,  quivering  aspens,  mur- 
muring pines,  hoary  willows,  sycamores  green,  tawny,  or 
scarlet,  according  to  the  season,  white-blossomed  hawthorn, 
deep  green  hollies,  elders  with  silver  blossoms,  stand  out  from 
the  mass  and  are  known  for  their  own  quahties.  Minute 
observation  is  indicated  by  the  descriptive  phrases  used. 
The  color  of  the  trunk,  the  spread  of  the  branches,  the  chang- 
ing hue  of  the  leaves,  the  kind  of  blossoms,  are  severally 
noted.  Two  special  studies  of  trees  are  by  Lady  Winchilsea 
and  Dr.  Dalton,  and  are  of  early  date.  Dyer  and  Cowper 
give  the  best  studies  of  trees  seen  in  a  mass,  and  yet  indi- 
vidually noted.  While  there  is  not  a  touch  of  the  deep  forest 
in  this  poetry,  there  are  many  lines  describing  woodland 
effects.  Thomson,  Potter,  and  Cowper  find  especial  pleasure 
in  the  lovely  interplay  of  light  and  shade  in  a  pathway  over- 
hung by  woven  branches.  The  brown  shadows  and  the 
softened  light  in  a  deeply  wooded  nook  are  observed.  Gentle 
streams  sing  happily  under  a  cooling  covert  of  green  boughs. 


348  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

The  quiet  of  the  woods  is  broken  only  by  the  plash  of  waters, 
the  rustle  of  boughs,  the  whisper  of  leaves,  the  hum  of  insects, 
the  song  of  birds,  sounds  from  distant  flocks  and  herds,  or  the 
stroke  of  the  woodman's  axe.  Trees  also  form  an  important 
part  of  every  general  landscape.  But  no  poet  has  given  so 
much  of  the  real  forest  feeling  as  Mrs.  Radcliffe.  Of 
travelers  Young  has  most  to  say  about  trees  but  his  observa- 
tions are  largely  scientific  and  utilitarian.  On  the  whole  we 
may  say  that  trees  are  given  abundant  and  discriminating  atten- 
tion, but  that  this  attention  seldom  penetrates  beyond  external, 
artistic  qualities.  Personal  friendship  for  trees  such  as  we  find 
in  Lowell,  for  instance,  has  hardly  yet  reached  expression. 

Birds  have  already  been  discussed  under  sound,  but  it 
remains  here  to  state  that  the  habits  of  birds,  their  manner  of 
flight,  their  nests,  the  trees  they  choose,  their  ways  of  protect- 
ing their  young,  wxre  all  topics  on  which  much  was  known. 
Of  minor  poets,  those  who  knew  birds  well,  are  Jago, 
Potter,  and  Bruce.  Gray  adds  some  perfect  touches.  Best 
of  all  for  accurate  description  and  real  understanding  are 
Thomson,  Cowper,  and  Burns.  The  prominent  place  of  the 
cuckoo  has  already  been  spoken  of.  The  redbreast  and  the 
thrush  with  "speckly  breast"  rank  not  far  behind  in  interest. 
The  redbreast  found  early  honor  in  Armstrong's  "Winter," 
and  then  in  Thomson's,  and  is  one  of  the  pleasing  elements 
in  Cowper's  ''Winter  Walk."  On  the  whole,  birds  of  the 
lakes  and  streams  seem  to  be  better  known  than  birds  of 
the  tree  and  copse. 

One  phase  of  the  literary  treatment  of  birds  is  a  recogni- 
tion of  their  rights  as  free,  living  beings.  This  feeling,  not 
toward  birds  alone  but  toward  all  animals,  is  one  of  the  marks 
of  the  new  spirit.  There  is  even  in  Lady  Winchilsea's 
"Revery"  a  slight  hint  of  the  conception  that  animals  would 
not  suffer  if  man  had  not  proved  himself  a  tyrant,  and  Gay 


GENERAL  SUMIMARY  349 

carries  out  the  same  thought  in  one  of  his  "  Fables."  Thom- 
son's protests  against  kiUing  animals  for  food  are  the  first 
strong  statements  of  the  new  feeling.  Shenstone,  in  "  Rural 
Elegance"  and  ''The  Dying  Kid,"  shows  some  sympathetic 
regard  for  animals.  Jago  and  Potter  and  Langhorne  pro- 
tested vigorously  against  cruelty  to  birds.  Beattie  had  the 
strongest  possible  dislike  toward  so-called  English  sports. 
The  feeling  of  close  fellowship  and  almost  human  love  toward 
animals,  so  marked  in  Wordsworth  and  Coleridge,  did  not 
find  expression  in  the  transition  poetry  until  Burns  and 
Cowper  gave  it  full  statement. 

Throughout  the  poetry  of  the  eighteenth  century  we  have 
observed  a  turning  from  the  general  to  the  specific.     There  is 
likewise  a  similar  tendency  to  localization.     The  classical 
poetry  of  Nature  belonged  to  no  special  spot,  hardly  to  any 
special  country.     The  poetry  of  Wordsworth  and  of  Walter 
Scott  was,  on  the  other  hand,  eminently  local.     They  cele- 
brated the  mountains  and  islands  and  streams  of  the  region 
they  knew.     Wordsworth  complained  that  before  his  day  no 
one  had  sung  of  British  mountains.     It  is  interesting  to  note 
the  growth  of  this  passion  for  certain  spots  definitely  pointed 
out  and  named,  certain  natural  scenes  known  and  loved  as 
a  person  might  be.     A  brief  survey  of  the  mountains  and 
streams  thus  celebrated  in  eighteenth-century  poetry  will 
serve  as  illustrative.     After  Dyer's  ''Grongar  Hill"  come 
other   mountains   of  Wales.     The   hoary   heights   of   huge 
Plynlymmon;    the   wide,    aerial   side   of   Cader-ydris;     the 
craggy    summits    of    cold    Snowdon,    king    of    mountains; 
Clyder's   cloud-enveloped   head;    Caer-caraduc,  and  others 
are  spoken  of  with  evident  pleasure  and  not  a  little  artistic 
perception.     In  Scotland  the  hills  of  Cheviot,  the  Pentland 
Hills,  the  mountains  in  the  Ossian  country,  and  those  around 
Lochleven,  are  chief.     In  England  we  have  the  scarry  side 


350  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

of  Braids,  Dafset's  ridgy  mountain,  Edge-Hill,  Almada  Hill, 
Derwent's  naked  peaks,  huge  Breaden,  blue-topp'd  Wrekin, 
giant  Skiddaw,  the  solemn  wall  of  Malvern,  the  Cambrian 
Hills,  the  hills  of  Ilmington,  and  others.  The  spirit  of 
localization  in  its  application  to  mountains  does  not  often  go 
beyond  calling  the  mountain  by  its  own  name,  and  using  some 
phrase  showing  that  this  mountain  is  known  as  separate  from 
the  general  mass.  In  its  application  to  streams  the  feeling 
is  more  detailed  in  expression.  Ramsay's  streams  and  pools 
are  closely  localized.  Dyer  celebrates  not  only  Towy's 
flood,  but  the  Vaga,  the  Ryddal,  the  Ystwith,  the  Clevedoc, 
the  Lune,  and  especially  the  Usk.  Dr.  Dalton  traces  the 
course  of  the  Borrowdale  Beck  from  Lodore  Falls  to  the  lake. 
Langhorne  follows  the  track  of  the  Bela  through  solitary 
meads,  and  then  through  the  rough  realms  of  Stainmore. 
He  also  celebrates  his  joy  as  a  child  in  the  river  Eden. 
Smollett,  on  his  sick  bed,  writes  an  ode  to  Leven  Water. 
Bruce  sings  of  the  Po,  the  Queech,  the  Severn,  and  especially 
of  his  youthful  delight  in  the  Gairney.  Mickle  writes  of  the 
Forth,  the  Annan,  the  Ewes,  and  the  Wauchope,  but  dwells 
with  most  zest  on  his  early  love  of  the  Esk.  Of  peculiar  in- 
terest is  Akenside's  apostrophe  to  the  Wansbeck.  Hamilton, 
Langhorne,  and  Logan  wrote  of  the  Yarrow,  Cowper  of  the 
Ouse,  Burns  of  the  Ayr,  the  Doon,  the  Nith,  the  Afton,  the 
Devon,  and  many  another  Scotch  stream,  while  Bowles 
wrote  of  the  Itchin,  the  Tweed,  the  Cherwell,  and  the  Wans- 
beck. A  map  might  be  made  on  which  should  be  repre- 
sented only  the  mountains  and  streams  spoken  of  with  some 
particularity,  with  something  more  than  a  mere  mention,  in 
English  poetry  between  1650  and  1720,  and  a  similar  map 
of  the  period  from  1720  to  1795.  A  comparison  of  the  two 
would  be  an  interesting  commentary  on  the  growth  of 
knowledge  and  interest  in  British  scenes. 


GENERAL  SUM]\URY  351 

All  that  has  been  so  far  presented  goes  to  show  that  in  the 
antithesis  between  town  and  country  the  balance  of  favor 
swung  round  during  the  eighteenth  century  to  the  country. 
Usually  the  preference  is  implicit,  and  is  to  be  inferred  from 
the  change  of  theme,  but  occasionally  the  antithesis  is 
sharply  stated,  as,  to  take  types,  in  Thomson,  the  Wartons, 
and  Cowper.  It  is  Thomson  who  first  gives  adequate  state- 
ment of  the  transfer  of  sovereignty  from  the  "fine  lady  muses 
of  Richmond  Hill"  to  "the  muses  of  the  simple  country." 
It  is  his  hatred  of  the  noisome  town,  his  delight  in  fields  and 
woods  untouched  by  man,  that  established  the  new  canon  of 
taste.  In  the  Wartons,  twenty  years  later,  the  breach  be- 
tween the  city  and  the  country  is  almost  an  impassable  gulf. 
Combined  with  the  love  of  Nature  in  her  external  forms  there 
is  that  spirit  of  romantic  melancholy  by  virtue  of  which  the 
poet  regards  Nature  as  a  refuge  from  the  tormenting  com- 
plexities that  beset  the  life  of  men  in  communities.  There 
is  usually  a  touch,  sometimes  more  than  a  touch,  of  morbid- 
ness in  the  passionate  eagerness  to  escape  not  only  from  the 
city  into  Nature,  but  from  man  and  all  traces  of  his  dominion 
into  a  solitude  free  from  all  human  suggestiveness.  Forty 
years  after  the  Wartons,  Cowper's  famous  epigram,  "God 
made  the  country  and  man  made  the  town,"  summed  the 
matter  up  according  to  the  new  view.  Cowper  is  as  emphatic 
in  his  preferences  as  his  predecessors,  and  much  more  detailed 
and  minute  in  his  expression.  With  him  there  is  no  vague 
generalizing,  no  morbid  or  passionate  over-statement.  His 
love  of  the  country  is  a  fundamental  fact  not  only  in  his  phys- 
ical, but  also  and  even  especially  in  his  moral  and  spiritual, 
life.  It  is  a  fixed  principle,  quiet,  rational,  inevitable.  The 
anti-classical  side  of  the  city  and  country  antithesis  receives 
in  Cowper's  poetry  its  most  decisive  and  most  reasonable 
eighteenth-century  statement.     We  hardly  find  anything  so 


352  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

conclusive  in  fiction  or  in  travels.  There  is  an  occasional 
expression  of  regret  at  going  back  to  towns  after  a  trip 
through  the  mountains  and  lakes,  but  as  a  rule  the  preference 
for  the  country  is  left  to  be  inferred  from  the  general  tenor 
of  the  traveler's  writings.  Mrs.  Brooke  protests  much 
against  London,  and  declares  her  preference  for  Nature 
unadorned.  Mackenzie's  Julia  rejoices  over  her  country 
birth  and  education,  and  Mrs.  Radcliffe  reiterates  the  desira- 
bility of  living  far  from  towns  and  as  close  as  possible  to  the 
influence  of  Nature.  Cowper,  however,  remains  as  having 
given  the  final,  emphatic  statement. 

Through  all  this  detailed  study  and  wide  knowledge  of 
Nature  there  runs  an  undercurrent  of  personal  enthusiasm 
which  is  quite  a  separate  thing  from  the  knowledge  of  Nature, 
but  which  led  to  that  knowledge  and  was  fed  by  it.  Some- 
times we  are  left  to  infer  this  enthusiasm  from  results,  but 
oftener  it  finds  clear  statement.  There  is  frequent  expression 
of  such  "unspeakable  joy"  as  Ambrose  Philips  felt  when  he 
gazed  on  a  little  country  home,  or  of  Ramsay's  "heartsome 
joy"  on  a  bright  spring  morning 

to  see  the  rising  plants, 
And  hear  the  birds  chirm  o'er  their  pleasin'  rants, 

or  of  Hamilton's  rapturous  joy  as  he  lies  on  the  flowering 
turf,  his  soul  "  commercing  with  the  sky."  In  many  passages 
Thomson  expresses  his  passionate  delight  in  the  music,  the 
color,  the  fragrances  of  the  out-door  world.  Dyer's  joys  run 
high  as  he  lies  on  the  mountain-turf.  Shenstone  says  that 
the  beauties  of  Nature  alone  bear  perpetual  sway,  and  he 
thinks  with  scorn  of  a  soul  so  narrow  that  it  cannot  relish 
Nature's  calm  delights.  Joseph  Warton  cannot  find  words 
to  express  the  ecstasy  with  which  he  looks  on  Nature.  John 
Langhorne's  only  wish  is  that  he  may  enjoy  the  blessings 
Nature  gives  to  those  who  love  her,  and  says  that  her  charm 


GENERAL  SUMMARY 


353 


alone  is  unfading.  Beattie  says  that  the  man  who  goes  to 
Nature  has  rapture  ever  new.  Cowper  thinks  that  any  man 
who  turns  away  from  Nature  starves  deservedly.  Burns  says 
that  he  looked  upon  Nature  with  boundless  joy.  This  feelin^^ 
of  exhilaration,  of  rapturous  delight,  is  pervasive.  It  is  often 
inadequate,  or  vague,  or  extravagant  in  statement,  but  the 
delight  is  unfeigned,  the  enthusiasm  real,  and  in  poet  after 
poet  it  demanded  expression.  That  it  seldom  found  the 
perfect  statement  only  means  that  art  is  long  and  that  much 
thinking  and  feeling  in  an  age  as  in'  an  individual  must  go 
before  the  final  art-form. 

Much  of  this  delight  in  Nature  is  in  kind  though  not  in 
degree  like  that  which  Wordsworth  in  "Tintern  Abbey" 
calls  his  second  period  of  love  for  Nature,  the  time  when 
the  colors  and  forms  of  the  external  world  were  a  sufficiently 
engrossing  pleasure,  and  he  felt  no  need  of  "a  remoter  charm 
by  thought  supplied."  But  Wordsworth  quickly  passed 
from  this  stage  of  pleasure  to  another.  In  his  best  descrip- 
tions, as  in  "The  Yew  Trees,"  he  gives  a  few  external  details, 
and  then  at  once  penetrates  to  the  inner  spirit  of  the  scene. 
He  is  like  a  portrait  painter  who  represents  the  features  with 
truth  and  simplicity  but  makes  the  face  live  because  he  has 
divined  the  qualities  of  soul  behind  it.  Now  whatever 
philosophical  tenets  Wordsworth  held  he  certainly  thought 
of  this  soul  of  Nature,  whether  of  Nature  as  a  whole,  or  in 
special  parts,  as  in  some  way  a  manifestation  of  divinity.  In 
other  words  he  saw  God  immanent  in  Nature.  The  classical 
conception  also  saw  God  in  Nature,  but  as  the  remote 
Architect,  Artificer,  Lawgiver.  The  universe  was  dead, 
cold,  inert  matter.  For  the  difficulty  with  which  it  was  made 
to  serve  men's  needs  the  defenders  of  Omnipotence  felt 
apologetic  explanations  necessary.  We  have  seen  that  dur- 
ing the  eighteenth  century  there  came  a  great  and  joyous 


354  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

awakening  to  the  external  charm  of  the  world.     Are  there 
also  indications  that  the  divine  life  in  Nature  was  felt  ? 

Throughout  the  eighteenth  century  the  usual  thought  of 
God  in  relation  to  Nature  is  the  classical  one.  He  is  the 
author  and  controller  of  the  universe;  but  there  are  some 
poems  or  passages  or  separate  lines  that  seem  to  indicate  a 
new  conception.  Lady  Winchilsea  recognizes  a  curious 
correspondence  between  Nature  and  her  own  heart,  and  says 
that  in  the  quiet  of  a  beautiful  night  she  feels  the  presence  of 
something  too  high  for  syllables  to  speak.  There  is  a  similar 
feeling  in  Hamilton's  description  of  a  silent  grove.  In  the 
''Nocturnal  Revery"  and  in  "Contemplation"  the  idea  of 
divinity  is  not  explicitly  stated,  but  in  Parnell's  "Hymn" 
the  song  of  praise  is  professedly  to  the  Source  of  all  Nature, 
because  through  Nature  the  divine  spirit  had  spoken  peace 
to  the  poet's  troubled  heart.  The  incessant  and  ever- 
present  creative  activity  of  God  is  clearly  set  forth  in  Thom- 
son's "Hymn."  Each  ray  of  sunshine,  every  blossoming 
flower  of  spring,  every  leaping  stream,  every  rolling  orb, 
performs  its  function  as  a  direct  expression  of  divine  energy. 
And  some  lines  give  a  further  suggestion  of  divine  immanence. 
The  rolling  year  is  full  of  God.  The  seasons  are  but  the 
varied  God.  The  beauty  of  God  walks  forth  in  the  flushing 
spring.  Such  expressions  as  these  mark  a  half-involuntary 
poetic  seizing  of  the  new  idea  of  Nature  as  the  bodily  presence 
of  which  God  was  the  soul,  but  they  do  not  indicate  Thom- 
son's leading  ideas.  Mallet,  imitative  of  Thomson  in  this  as 
in  other  respects,  usually  speaks  of  God  as  the  Creator,  but 
in  one  passage  touches  on  the  full  stream  of  universal  Good- 
ness that  is  ever-flowing  through  earth,  air,  and  sea,  and  on 
the  ceaseless  song  of  praise  going  up  from  the  great  com- 
m.unity  of  Nature's  sons.  Boyse  in  his  "Deity"  thinks  of 
God  as  an  Almighty  Architect,  but  has  a  few  lines  in  which 


GENERAL  SUMMARY  355 

he  represents  all  Nature  as  being  momently  derived  from 
God.  Young  has  a  significant  line  when  he  says  that  night 
is  the  "  felt  presence  of  the  Deity."  The  theme  of  Akenside's 
poem  is  to  show  the  response  which  the  imaginative  mind 
finds  in  Nature,  and  this  response  is,  he  says,  the  voice  of  the 
divine  spirit.  His  conception  is  usually,  to  be  sure,  that  the 
divine  spirit  speaks  through  the  forms  of  Nature,  rather  than 
that  the  form  and  the  spirit  have  an  essential  union.  Yet 
sometimes  he  speaks  more  clearly  the  new  thought.  He  says 
that  the  man  who  loves  Nature  holds  daily  converse  with  God 
himself;  the  beauty  of  Nature  flows  directly  from  God; 
the  order  in  Nature  is  sacred;  the  influence  whereby 
Nature  soothes  and  cheers  and  elevates  man  is  really  a  divine 
influence.  This  is  the  fullest  recognition  of  an  in-dwelling 
God  until  we  reach  Cowper.  In  his  poetry  we  find  a  clear 
statement  of  belief  in  the  lines. 

There  lives  and  works 
A  soul  in  all  things,  and  that  soul  is  God, 

but  the  point  is  not  one  on  which  he  dwells.  These  passages 
certainly  foreshadow  Wordsworth's  conception  of  God  in 
Nature,  but  they  are  comparatively  feeble  and  unimaginative 
in  expression.  There  is  nothing  so  Wordsworthian  in 
Thomson's  sonorous  lines  or  in  Akenside's  ample  statement 
as  there  is  the  feeling  that  penetrates  the  brief  words  of  Lady 
Winchilsea  and  Parnell.  Compared  to  these  even  Cowper 
seems  cold  and  intellectual. 

^  Wordsworth  did  not,  however,  lay  special  stress  on  his 
belief  that  the  spirit  he  felt  in  Nature  was  divine.  He  rather 
took  that  for  granted,  or  allowed  it  to  be  implied  in  the  pas- 
sionate fulness  and  intensity  of  his  expressions  of  gratitude  to 
that  spirit  for  gifts  of  mind  and  heart.  This  sense  of  in- 
debtedness to  Nature  found  no  place  in  the  classical  poetry. 
But  in  the  transition  period  it  receives  surprisingly  full  and 


^f;^        NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 


^yj 


varied  expression.  Sometimes  it  takes  the  form  of  personal 
gratitude  for  special  gifts;  sometimes  it  is  a  general  state- 
ment of  what  man  owes  to  Nature.  A  brief  review  of  the 
more  significant  passages  will  serve  to  show  the  character- 
istics of  this  feeling  toward  Nature. 

To  begin  with,  Nature  gives  peace.  This  is  the  gift  most 
often  spoken  of.  Even  John  Philips  said  that  Nature  calmed 
his  mind.  Ambrose  Philips  liked  the  songs  of  birds  because 
they  brought  him  into  a  mood  of  ''sweet  and  gentle  com- 
posure." Lady  Winchilsea  enjoyed  the  night  because  its 
influence  disposed  her  heart  to  silent  musings  and  made  her 
conscious  of  a  "sedate  content."  Parnell  had  long  vainly 
sought  contentment  until  at  last  his  heart  received  the  message 
of  peace  through  the  voices  of  Nature.  Hamilton  said  that 
all  the  passions  in  the  troubled  breast  of  man  could  be 
calmed  by  the  quiet  of  a  grove.  Thomson  finds  in  Nature  a 
power  that  can  "serene  his  soul"  and  "harmonize  his  heart." 
Dyer  finds  peace  and  quiet  in  "the  meads  and  mountain- 
heads."  Mallet  follows  Thomson  in  thought  and  phrase 
when  he  represents  that  Nature  has  power  to  "serene  the 
soul."  Akenside  says  that  the  spirit  of  Nature  lulls  man's 
passions  to  a  divine  repose.  Cooper  says  that  a  contempla- 
tion of  the  order  and  regularity  in  Nature's  life  will  induce  a 
like  harmonious  action  in  the  human  heart,  and  that  the 
fiercest  passions  of  horror  and  revenge  can  be  soothed  by 
Nature.  Joseph  Warton  says  that  all  Nature  conspires  to 
soothe  and  harmonize  the  mind.  William  Whitehead  speaks 
of  the  "philosophic  calmness"  that  comes  to  man  from 
Nature.  Beattie's  hermit  found  in  Nature  a  power  that 
could  subdue  the  wildest  passions  and  give  "profound 
repose."  Bruce  found  in  Nature  "harmony  of  mind." 
Bowles  felt  a  "soothing  charm"  that  brought  "solace  to  his 
heart"  and  "bore  him  on  serene."     So,  too,  was  it  with 


GENERAL  SUMMARY  357 

Cowper.  Nature  gave  him  heart-consoling  joys,  and  brought 
peace  and  quiet  into  his  Hfe.  This  power  of  Nature  to  soothe 
the  mind  of  man  and  to  modify  his  passions  receives  full 
expression  also  in  Mrs.  Radcliffe's  romances. 

Nature  gives  not  only  peace  and  rest  to  man;  she  gives 
him  joy.  The  sense  of  ecstasy  and  rapture  in  this  joy  has 
already  been  indicated  in  the  passages  expressive  of  personal 
enthusiasm  for  Nature.  Sometimes  it  was  a  joy  rising  out  of 
the  delight  of  agreeable  physical  sensations,  as  when  Lady 
Winchilsea  felt  in  the  odor  of  the  jonquil  a  pleasure  so  keen 
that  it  was  pain,  or  when  Langhorne  sank  down  oppressed 
by  the  boundless  charms  of  field  and  wood,  or  such  joy  as 
Gray's  convalescent  knew  when  he  went  out  again  into 
Nature.  But  here  a  more  spiritual  joy  is  referred  to.  It  is 
rather  the  disturbing  joy  of  elevated  thoughts  of  which 
Wordsw^orth  speaks.  This  uplift  of  soul  in  the  presence  of 
Nature  is  felt  by  Parnell  when  he  seeks  to  give  expression  to 
the  great  chorus  of  thanksgiving  to  God  from  all  existences. 
Lady  Winchilsea  and  John  Langhorne  felt  it  when  Nature 
gave  them  "thoughts  too  high  to  be  express't."  Akenside 
felt  it,  and  in  a  truly  Wordsworthian  sense,  when  he  said  that 
in  the  presence  of  Nature  the  intellect  is  charmed  into  a 
suspension  of  its  graver  cares,  while  love  and  joy  alone  possess 
the  soul.  Burns  finds  that  Nature  exalts,  enraptures  him, 
making  him  conscious  of  an  elevation  of  soul.  And,  finally, 
in  Gilpin,  we  find,  though  awkwardly  expressed,  an  exact 
statement  of  the  enthusiastic  calm,  the  visionary  joy,  with 
which  Wordsworth  looked  on  Nature. 

A  third  gift  of  Nature  is  poetical  inspiration,  and  that, 
too,  in  the  sense  in  which  Wordsworth  believed  that  Nature 
set  him  apart  for  poetry  ai;id  assisted  him  in  his  development. 
Akenside's  apostrophe  to  the  Wansbeck  along  whose  banks 
he  wandered  in  childhood,  "led  in  silence  by  some  powerful 


358  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

hand  unseen,"  his  assertion  that  these  influences  fixed  the 
color  of  his  hfe  for  every  future  year,  his  thought  of  Nature's 
"tender  disciphne"  when  skies  and  streams  and  groves  con- 
spire to  guide  the  predestined  sons  of  Fancy,  are  strikingly 
Wordsworthian.  Langhorne  says  that  in  his  lonely  youth 
"the  woodland  genius"  came  and  touched  him  with  the 
holy  flame  of  poetry.  To  the  ''Genius  of  Westmoreland"  he 
ascribes  the  sacred  fire  within  his  breast.  The  whole  theme 
of  Seattle's  "Minstrel"  is,  as  has  been  pointed  out,  the  effect 
of  Nature  on  a  poetically  sensitive  mind. 

Nature  also  gives  a  wisdom  such  as  -books  and  schools 
cannot  give.  The  earliest  expression  of  this  thought  is  in 
Pattison's  comparison  of  the  deep  wisdom  drawn  from  Nature 
and  the  superficial  knowledge  of  the  schools.  Gay  in  the 
contest  between  the  shepherd  who  knew  Nature  and  the 
philosopher  who  knew  cities  and  books  determined  that 
Nature  without  the  schools  can  make  men  wise.  Langhorne 
says  that  "fair  Philosophy,"  like  Poetry,  must  be  sought  for 
in  Nature.  There  is,  however,  no  other  eighteenth-century 
statement  of  this  idea  so  complete  as  Cowper's  eulogy  of 
the  wisdom  of  the  heart  that  Nature  gives. 

Nature  is  also  considered  as  inspiring  to  morality  and 
virtue.  Gay,  in  a  fable  already  quoted  from,  says  that  Nature 
can  make  men  "moral"  and  "good,"  if  they  will  learn  her 
lessons.  Thomson  meditates  on  Nature  because  thence  he 
hopes  to  learn  lessons  of  morality.  Mallet  says  that  Nature 
inspires  the  soul  with  "virtuous  raptures"  and  prompts  man 
to  forsake  sin-born  vanities  and  low  pursuits.  Akenside's 
chief  theme  is  the  power  of  Nature  to  lead  men  from  petty 
interests  and  hurried,  sordid  lives  into  a  beneficent  and 
ordered  activity  of  the  soul.  Cooper  ascribes  to  "every 
natural  scene  a  moral  power."  John  Langhorne  says  that 
the  sweet  sensations  of  Nature  move  the  "  springs  of  virtue's 


GENERAL  SUMMARY  359 

love,"  and  have  a  "moral  use,"  and  that  religion,  fled  from 
books,  can  be  found  in  Nature  whence  we  first  drew  both 
our  knowledge  and  our  virtue.  Beattie  says  that  the  charms 
of  Nature  work  "the  soul's  eternal  health."  They  inspire 
love  and  gentleness.  They  incite  to  high  living,  and  the  man 
who  neglects  them  can  hardly  hope  to  be  forgiven.  A 
pervading  thought  in  Cowper's  poems  is  his  moral  and  spirit- 
ual indebtedness  to  Nature. 

Wordsworth  not  infrequently  indicates  his  belief  that  the 
spirit  of  Nature  consciously  blesses  man.  This  idea  is 
sometimes  found  in  the  transition  poetry,  as  in  Hamilton's 
"Contemplation,"  and  especially  in  Akenside  and  Cowper 
who  represent  Nature  as  making  the  happiness  of  man  "  her 
dear  and  only  aim." 

So  far  we  have  discussed  the  knowledge  of  Nature  and  the 
feeling  toward  it  rather  than  its  use  in  literature.  That  this 
knowledge  was  abundant  and  varied,  that  this  feeling  was 
enthusiastic  and  often  deeply  reverential,  may,  perhaps,  pass 
without  further  question.  But  a  different  problem  presents 
itself  when  we  ask  what  literary  use  the  eighteenth-century 
poet  made  of  Nature.  It  must  be  conceded  at  the  outset 
that  many  references  to  natural  facts  are  not  literary  at  all. 
In  Mallet's  "Excursion,"  for  instance,  his  journey  through 
stellar  spaces  renders  frequent  mention  of  the  sky  and  stars 
inevitable,  but  the  references  might  as  well  be  to  macadamized 
roads.  His  purpose  is  merely  to  get  from  one  point  of 
vantage  to  another.  Such  brief,  cold,  unpicturesque  use  of 
details  for  purposes  of  transition  are  really  non-literary.  In 
any  tabular  statement  of  an  author's  work  some  discount 
must  be  made  to  allow  for  this  mechanical  use  of  Nature, 
and  in  certain  authors,  as  notably  Mallet  and  Young,  the 
discount  is  large.  Another  non-literary  use  of  Nature  is  in 
the  catalogue  or  summary.     John  Scott  gives  the  extreme 


360  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

example  of  this  unorganized  accumulation  of  details.  The 
instinct  of  the  artist  is  wanting.  The  poet  does  not  even 
attempt  to  make  Nature  a  part  of  a  well-fused  literary  prod- 
uct. He  is  encumbered  by  his  material.  He  crowds  his 
canvas.  His  full  and  realistic  presentation  is  without  artistic 
reservations.  His  record  is  prompted  simply  by  interest  in 
the  separate  facts.  No  literary  purpose  determines  his  selec- 
tion or  rejection  of  detail.  A  recognized  theme,  unity,  pro- 
portion, are  absent.  Such  summaries  may  be  of  the  highest 
importance  as  showing  the  abundance  and  exactness  of  the 
author's  knowledge  of  Nature,  and  separate  phrases  may 
have  real  literary  quality,  but  the  passage  as  a  whole  is  no 
more  literary  than  an  inventory. 

When,  however,  a  purpose  is  apparent  in  the  use  of  Nature, 
when  there  is  discrimination  under  the  dominance  of  a  central 
idea,  then,  however  crude  and  feeble  the  actual  result,  there 
is  at  least  an  attempt  to  use  Nature  in  a  literary  way. 

This  dominating  purpose  may  be  merely  description  for 
its  own  sake,  an  attempt  to  present  aspects  of  Nature  in  suc- 
cessive, isolated,  artistically  composed  pictures,  each  com- 
plete in  itself  and  having  its  parts  organically  related.  Such 
description  is  entirely  objective.  Its  aim  is  the  reproduction 
of  sights  and  sounds  by  which  Nature  under  given  conditions 
appeals  to  the  senses.  When  highly  elaborated  its  obvious 
danger  is  that  there  will  be,  in  spite  of  the  most  artistic  man- 
agement, a  certain  vagueness  and  heaviness  of  effect.  There 
are,  nevertheless,  very  beautiful  examples  of  pure  detailed 
description  dissociated  from  any  purpose  except  that  of  mak- 
ing a  picture  in  words,  in  both  Thomson  and  Cowper,  and 
here  and  there  less  successful  examples  in  other  writers. 

A  more  subtle  use  of  Nature  is  when  the  poet  assembles  his 
details  in  order  to  reproduce  not  a  scene  or  an  aspect  of 
Nature,  but  the  typical  impression  they  have  made  on  his 


GENERAL  SUMIMARY  361 

mind.  Lady  Winchilsea  tells  many  facts  about  night,  but 
her  purpose  is  not  the  description  of  a  single  night;  it  is  the 
reproduction  of  the  loving  delight  and  tender  awe  awakened 
in  her  own  heart  by  many  soft  summer  nights.  The  purpose 
of  Parnell's  descriptive  details  is  the  reproduction  of  the  mood 
of  spiritual  content  induced  by  certain  scenes.  Passages  such 
as  these  are  often  more  or  less  detailed  summaries,  but  they 
have  literary  quahty  because  the  motif  produces  unity  of 
effect. 

Again,  the  facts  and  descriptions  may  be  adduced  in  sup- 
port of  a  theory,  as  in  Young's  "Night  Thoughts,"  Akenside's 
"Pleasures  of  the  Imagination,"  Shenstone's  "Progress  of 
Taste,"  Beattie's  "Minstrel,"  and  Cowper's  "Task."  Here 
too,  an  organizing  purpose  is  discernible,  though  there  is  the 
greatest  possible  difference  in  the  various  ways  of  using  the 
material  for  the  given  purpose;  Young's  facts,  for  instance, 
being  used  in  a  cold,  argumentative  fashion,  while  Beattie's 
and  Cowper's  are  suffused  with  emotion. 

Another  use  of  Nature  is  based  on  the  poet's  perception  of 
the  analogies  between  external  Nature  and  human  life  or 
character.  One  outcome  of  this  sense  for  analogies  is  in 
abundant  similitudes,  a  literary  use  of  Nature  common  in  all 
languages,  at  all  periods.  In  the  pseudo-classical  poetry  of 
England  we  have  seen  that  the  similitudes  were  conventional 
and  superficial.  In  a  period  of  intimate  knowledge  and  love 
of  the  outer  world  there  is  stress  on  the  truth  and  beauty  of 
the  picture  from  Nature  as  well  as  on  the  human  fact  sym- 
bolized, and  the  analogy  is  subtly  and  sympathetically  con- 
ceived.    Wordsworth's 

A  violet  by  a  mossy  stone 
Half  hidden  from  the  eye 

is  perfect  in  itself  as  a  picture  of  Nature,  and  it  is  exquisitely 
apt  in  describing  Lucy.     He  discovered  in  Nature  that  which 


362  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

in  its  inner  significance  was  truly  a  counterpart  of  the  human 
idea.  With  regard  to  the  simiHtudes  of  the  transition  poetry 
I  have  noted  two  interesting  facts.  In  the  first  place,  in  pro- 
portion to  the  whole  use  of  Nature,  the  use  of  Nature  in 
similitudes  is  very  much  less  in  the  transition  than  in  the 
classical  poetry.  In  the  second  place,  in  no  other  way  of 
using  Nature  was  the  changed  conception  of  the  outer  world 
so  slow  to  manifest  itself.  Stock  similes  persisted  even  in 
authors  who,  in  other  respects,  gave  clear  evidence  of  the 
new  spirit.  It  was  apparently  easier  to  be  original  and 
individual  in  a  new  realm,  than  to  break  away  from  the  estab- 
lished conventions  of  an  accepted  literary  form. 

As  another  outcome  of  the  recognized  correspondence 
between  Nature  and  life  the  facts  of  Nature  become,  as  it 
were,  an  allegory  of  human  experience.  From  Dyer  on  there 
is  a  strain  of  pensive,  gently  didactic  moralizing  drawn  from 
the  poet's  observation  of  Nature.  A  river,  however  beauti- 
ful in  itself  because  of  its  ceaseless  motiontits^ifting  colors, 
its  varied  banks,  its  progress  .te^fhe  sea,  is  transformed  m  the^ 
poet's  mind  into  a  symbol'df  the  vicissitudes  and  the  final  goal 
of  life.  Of  the  more-obvious  analogies  of  this  sort  we  find 
many  examples,  but  of  the  highly  imaginative  use  of  Nature 
whereby  the  external  fact,  however  truly  and  beautifully  per- 
ceived, seems  hardly  thought  of  except  as  a  symbol  of  the 
hidden  things  of  the  spirit  and  of  the  life  to  come,  we  find 
almost  no  examples  outside  of  Blake. 

The  use  of  Nature  in  connection  with  man's  joys  or  sor- 
rows may  be  lyrical  or  it  may  be  dramatic  in  tone.  Under  the 
lyrical  use  of  Nature  may  be  classed  the  numerous  passages 
in  which  the  poet  dwells  upon  his  youth  and  the  early  joy 
he  had  in  forest,  stream,  and  field.  The  homesick  longing, 
the  genuine  human  feeling,  and  the  marks  of  local  fidelity 
to  fact  make  this  use  of  Nature  usually  excellent.     It  often 


GENERAL  SUMIVIARY  363 

takes  the  form  of  an  apostrophe  to  some  specific  river  or  grove 
or  hill.  This  autobiographic  use  of  Nature  is  well  exempli- 
fied in  Thomson,  Akenside,  Beattie,  Langhorne,  Mickle, 
Bruce,  and  Cowper.  Again,  the  poet  recounts  with  lyrical 
fervor  his  debt  to  Nature.  He  gives  thanks  for  content,  joy, 
peace,  serenity,  or  he  implores  Nature  to  appease  the  longings 
of  his  sick  heart,  to  restore  his  soul  to  health.  In  either  case 
there  is  a  mingling  of  human  emotions  and  details  from 
Nature.  Such  passages  may  easily  be  feebly  hysterical,  but 
sometimes  as  in  Dyer,  Beattie,  Akenside,  Langhorne,  and 
Cowper,  they  are  marked  by  genuine  beauty  and  pathos  as 
well  as  by  directness  of  vision.  Perhaps  the  best  examples 
of  scenes  thus  indissolubly  connected  with  phases  of  spiritual 
experience  are  Bowles'  sonnets,  and  unquestionably  the 
highest  purely  lyrical  use  of  Nature  is  in  Burns'  songs. 

Nature  is  used  dramatically  when  it  is  made  the  appro- 
priate background  or  accompaniment  of  human  life.  This 
use  of  Nature  may  be  merely  to  intensify  the  reader's  impres- 
sion by  certain  effects  of  harmony  or  contrast.  Night,  for 
instance,  is  considered  the  appropriate  setting  for  reflections 
on  man's  mortality,  as  in  Young  and  Parnell.  A  certain  sort 
of  scenery  becomes  the  conventionally  fit  background  for 
romantic  aspirations  and  dejections,  as  in  all  the  sentimental 
melancholy  poets.  But  oftener  Nature  is  not  merely  a  back- 
ground. It  is  mingled  with  the  thought  and  action.  This 
is  true  of  most  of  the  reflective,  moralizing  poetry,  and  is  true 
in  a  more  dramatic  sense  in  such  pastorals  as  Ramsay's  and 
Gay's  where  it  is  impossible  to  think  of  the  people  and  their 
doings  apart  from  the  Nature  about  them.  A  similar  dra- 
matic use  of  Nature  is  to  be  seen  in  Gray,  in  Collins,  in  Ossian, 
and,  in  a  briefer  form,  in  the  Ballads.  It  is,  however,  in 
romantic  fiction  that  this  use  of  Nature  is  most  abundant 
during  the  eighteenth  century.     As  background,  as  accom- 


364  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

paniment,  and  further,  even  as  a  force  contributing  to  the 
progress  of  the  story  by  its  determining  influence  on  mood 
and  character,  external  Nature  plays  an  important  part. 
This  background,  indeed,  sometimes  becomes  unduly  im- 
portant, almost  usurping  the  place  of  the  picture,  as  in  Mrs. 
Radcliffe's  romances. 

Nature  may,  finally,  be  regarded  not  only  as  making  a 
sensuous  appeal  to  man,  or  as  entering  in  some  way  into 
relationship  with  him,  but  as  having  an  independent  and 
separate  existence.  The  poet  who  thus  conceives  of  Nature 
gives  little  detailed  external  description;  nor  does  he  think 
of  a  scene  in  its  human  connotations,  but  he  goes  through 
facts  and  perceives  the  spirit  of  the  scene,  the  essential 
quaHties  that  make  it  what  it  is.  Of  such  use  of  Nature  we 
find  few  eighteenth-century  examples.  It  demands  not  only 
Wordsworth's  wise  passiveness  of  mood,  and  clarity  of  vision, 
and  depth  of  feeling,  but  likewise  the  power  to  speak  the 
inevitable  word. 

The  detailed  study  of  a  barren  field  in  its  most  barren 
aspect  would  be  inexcusably  dull  and  dreary  from  any  but 
the  historical  point  of  view.  The  moment  that  point  of  view 
is  adopted  interest  begins.  The  study  of  literature  as  a 
growth,  and  evolution,  gives  a  new  significance  to  periods  of 
transition.  The  pleasure  of  the  biologist  in  the  lower  forms 
of  life  is  paralleled  by  the  delight  of  the  student  of  literature 
in  tracing  out  the  first  vague,  ineffective  attempts  to  express 
ideas  that  are  afterward  regnant. 

The  final  effect  of  the  present  study  is  one  of  surprise  to 
find  how  completely  the  ideas  of  the  early  nineteenth-century 
poetry  of  Nature  were  represented  in  the  germ  in  the  eight- 
eenth century.  The  whole  impression  is  that  before  the  work 
of  such  men  as  Wordsworth,  Coleridge,  and  Scott  there  was 
a  great  stir  of  getting  ready.     The  love  of  Nature  was  awake 


GENERAL  SUMMARY  365 

in  the  hearts  of  men.  Their  eyes  were  open  to  her  beauty. 
Their  ears  drank  in  her  harmonies.  Their  spirits  were  con- 
scious of  her  higher  gifts.  Before  Wordsworth  most  of  his 
characteristic  thoughts  on  Nature  had  received  fairly  exphcit 
statement. 

We  note  also  the  vitality  of  the  impulse  toward  Nature  as 
indicated  by  the  many  directions  in  which  it  pushed  out  and 
demanded  expression.  With  little  self-conscious  direction 
and  independently  of  each  other  apparently,  the  various  arts 
were  irresistibly  impelled  to  some  sort  of  expression  of  the 
new  interest  in  the  external  world.  Nor  can  we  ignore  the 
fact  that  behind  all  forms  of  art  expression  there  must  have 
been  the  great  impulsive  force  of  a  love  of  Nature  active  in 
the  hearts  of  the  mute  inglorious  many. 

When  at  the  end  of  such  a  period  of  preparation  the  great 
poet  comes,  he  is  great  by  virtue  of  his  power  to  penetrate 
beneath  literary  conventions  and  to  give  free,  vigorous,  ade- 
quate expression  to  the  struggling,  half-articulate  thoughts 
and  feelings  of  his  own  age.  He  is  not  an  inexplicable, 
isolated  phenomenon.  He  has  his  natural  place  in  the 
development.  The  profound  significance  of  the  work  that 
marks  an  epoch  in  thought  is  that  it  not  only  directs  the 
future,  but  it  sums  up  the  past. 


INDICES 


BIBLIOGRAPHICAL  INDEX 

COLLECTIONS 

"British  Novelists,  An  Edition  with  Essays  and  Lives."     Ed.  Anne 

Letitia  Barbauld.    50  vols.    London,  18 10, 
"British  Poets,  Less-Kjiown."    Ed.  C.  C.  Clarke.    3  vols.    Edinburgh, 

1868. 
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Addison,  Joseph.    "Works."    6  vols.    Bohn  Ed.,  London,  1892. 
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369 


370  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

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Burroughs,  John.     "Fresh  Fields."     Boston,  1885. 

Butler,  Samuel.  "Poems."  Dr.  Johnson's  "English  Poets,"  Vols. 
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Chambers,  Sir  William.  "Dissertation  on  Oriental  Gardens."  Lon- 
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Chapman,  George.  "Homer's  Iliad  and  Odyssey."  Ed.  R.  H.  Shep- 
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Charlanne,  Louis.  "L'influence  franjaise  en  Angleterre  au  XVII « 
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Chaucer,  Geoffrey.  "Poetical  Works."  6  vols.  Aldine  Ed.,  London, 
1883. 

Collins,  William.  "Poetical  Works."  Ed.  M.  M.  Thomas.  Aldine 
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Congreve,  William.  "Poems."  Dr.  Johnson's  "English  Poets," 
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Conway,  W.  M.  "The  Artistic  Development  of  Gainsborough  and 
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Cooper,  J.  G.     "Poems."    Chalmers'  "English  Poets,"  Vol.  15. 

Coventry,  Francis.  "Poems."  Dodsley's  "Collection,"  Vol.  4. 
"Pompey  the  Little."  Mrs.  Barbauld's  "British  Novelists," 
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Cowley,  Abraham.  "Poems."  Dr.  Johnson's  "English  Poets," 
Vols.  I  and  2. 

Cowper,  William.  "Poetical  Works."  Ed.  William  Benham.  New 
York,  1889. 

Crabbe,  George.     "Poetical  Works."     8  vols.     London,  185 1, 

Cunningham,  Allen.     "British  Painters."     London,  1879. 

Dalton,  Dr.  John.     "Poems."     Bell's  "Fugitive  Poets,"  Vol.  2. 

Davenport-,  Cyril.     "Mezzotints."     Methuen,  1904. 

Defoe,  Daniel.  "The  Life  and  Strange  Surprising  Adventures  of 
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Denham,  John.     "Poems."     Dr.  Johnson's  "English  Poets,"  Vol.  9. 

Downing,  A,  J.  "Landscape  Gardening  and  Rural  Architecture." 
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Dryden,  John.  "Works."  9  vols.  Eds.  Scott  and  Sain tsbury.  Edin- 
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Duck,  Stephen.     "Poems."     Southey's  "Later  English  Poets,"  Vol.  2. 


372  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

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Falconer,  William.  "Poetical  Works."  Aldine  Ed.,  London,  1882. 
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Fenton,  Elijah.     "Poems."     Chalmers'  "English  Poets,"  Vol.  10. 

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Gay,  John.    "Poems."    Dr.  Johnson's  "English  Poets,"  Vols.  41  and 42. 

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Gower,  F.S.A.,  Lord  Ronald  Sutherland.  "  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds, 
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INDICES  373 

Hawkesworth,     John.     "Almoran    and    Hamet."     Mrs.     Barbauld's 

"British  Novelists." 
Hill,  Aaron.     "Poems."     Anderson's  "British  Poets,"  Vol.  8. 
Howe,  Walter.     Ed.  of  "The  Gardener:   As  Considered  in  Literature 

by  Some  Polite  Writers."     G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons. 
Howell,  James,     "ppistolae  Ho-Elianae."     London,  1737. 
Hughes,  John.     "Poems."     Dr.  Johnson's  "English  Poets,"  Vol.  22. 
Humboldt,    Alexander    von.     "Kosmos."     4    vols.     Stuttgart,    1890. 
Hutchinson,  W.     "An  Excursion  to  the  Lakes  in  Westmoreland  and 

Cumberland."     London,  1776. 
Inchbald,     Mrs.     "A    Simple    Story."     Mrs.     Barbauld's    "British 

Novelists." 
Jago,  Richard.     "Poems."    Anderson's  "British  Poets,"  Vol.  11. 
Jenyns,  Soame.     "Poems."     Bell's  "Fugitive  Poets,"  Vol.  i. 
Johnson,  Samuel.     "Works."     9  vols.    Oxford  English  Classics,  1825. 
King,  William.     "Poems."     Dr.  Johnson's  "English  Poets,"  Vol.  20. 
Knight,  Richard  Payne.     "The  Landscape,  A  Didactic  Poem,"  1794. 
Langhome,  John.     "Poems."     "British  Poets,"  Vol.  11. 
Langley,  Batty.     "New  Principles  of  Gardening,"  1728. 
Laprade,  Victor  de.     "La  sentiment  de  la  nature  chez  les  modernes." 

Paris,  1870. 
Lecky,  W.  E.  H.     "History  of  England  in  the  Eighteenth  Century." 

8  vols.     New  York,  1882. 
Lee,  Vernon.     "Euphorion."     Boston,  1885. 
Lennox,  Mrs.     "The  Female  Quixote."     Mrs.   Barbauld's  "British 

Novelists." 
"Les  delices  de  la  Grande  Bretagne  et  de  I'lrlande."    Leyden,  1707. 
Logan,  John.     "British  Poets,"  Vol.  11. 

London,  J.  C.     "Encyclopaedia  of  Gardening."     London,  187 1. 
Lyttleton,  Lord.     "Poems."     Dr.  Johnson's  "English  Poets,"  Vol.  56. 
Mackenzie,  Henry.     "The  Man  of  Feeling."     "Julia  de  Roubigne." 

Mrs.  Barbauld's  "British  Novelists." 
Macpherson,  James.     "Poems  of  Ossian."     Ed.  Dr.  Blair.     Tauchnitz 

Ed.     Leipzig,  1847. 
McLaughlin,  Edward  T.    "Studies  in  Mediaeval  Life  and  Literature." 

New  York,  1894. 
Mallet,  David.     "Poems."     Dr.  Johnson's  "English  Poets,"  Vol.  53. 
Manson,  James  A.     "George  Moriand." 
Marriott,  Mr.     "Poems."     Dodsley's  "Supplement,"  Vol.  4- 


374  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

Martin,    Mr.     "Description    of   the   Western    Islands   of   Scotland.'* 

Pinkerton's  ''Collection,"  Vol.  3. 
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Library,  1875. 
Mason,  William.     "Poems."     London,  1764.     "The  English  Garden." 

Jencks's  "Rural  Poetry." 
Mendes,  Moses.     "The  Seasons."    Bell's  "Fugitive  Poets,"  Vol.  6. 
Mickle,  Wm.  J.     "Poems."     Park's  "British  Poets,"  Vol.  34. 
Miller,  Hugh.     "Impressions  of  England  and  Its  People."     London, 

1847. 
Milton,  John.     "Poetical  Works."     3  vols.     Ed.  Masson.    New  York, 

1894. 
Monkhouse,  Cosmo.     "The  Earlier  English  Water-Colour  Painters." 

Suley  &  Co.,  1897. 
Montagu,  Lady  Mary  Wortley.     "Letters  and  Works."     2  vols.    Lon- 
don, 1887. 
Moore,  Dr.     "Zeluco."     Mrs.  Barbauld's  "British  Novelists." 
Nettleship,  J.  T.     "George  Morland"  ("Portfolio,"  Dec.  1898). 
Nichols,  Rose  Standish.     "English  Pleasure  Gardens." 
Oliphant,  Mrs.  M.  O.  W.     "The  Reign  of  Queen  Anne."     The  Century 

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Paltock,    Robert.     "The   Life   and   Adventures   of  Peter  Wilkins." 

2  vols.     London,  1884. 
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Vol.  3. 
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Ed.  H.  B.  Wheatley.     London,  1891. 
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Phelps,  W.  L.     "The  Beginnings  of  the  English  Romantic  Movement." 

Boston,  1893. 
Philips,  Ambrose.     Dr.  Johnson's  "English  Poets,"  Vol.  14. 
Philips,  John.     Dr.  Johnson's  "English  Poets,"  Vol.  21. 
Pitt,  Christopher.      "Poems."     Dr.  Johnson's  "English  Poets,"  Vol. 

43- 


INDICES  375 

Pope,  Alexander.     "Works."     lo  vols.     Eds.  Edwin  and  Courthope. 

London,  1671. 
Potter,  R.     "Poems."     Bell's  "Fugitive  Poets,"  Vol.  6. 
Price,  Sir  Uvedale.     "An  Essay  on  the  Picturesque."     London,  1794. 
Prior,  Matthew.     Dr.  Johnson's  "English  Poets,"  Vols.  30,  31. 
Radclifife,   Mrs.     "Romance  of  a  Forest."     3  vols.     London,    1803. 

"Mysteries  of  Udolpho."     4  vols.     London,  1803. 
Ramsay,  Allan.     "Poems."     2  vols.     Paisley,  1877. 
Redgrave,  Gilbert.    "Water-Color  Painting  in  England."     New  York, 

1892. 
Reeve,    Cora.     "Old    English    Baron."     Mre.    Barbauld's    "British 

Novelists,"  Vol.  21. 
Repton,  Humphrey.     "Landscape  Gardening  and  Landscape  Archi- 
tecture."    Ed.  J.  C.  Loudon.     London,  1840. 
Richardson,     Samuel.     "Works."     Ed.     Leslie     Stephen.     12     vols. 

London,  1883. 
Robertson,  David,     "Tour  through  the   Isle   of  Man."     Pinkerton's 

"Collection,"  Vol.  2. 
Roscommon,   Earl  of.     "Poems."     Dr.  Johnson's   "English  Poets," 

Vol.  10. 
Rouquet.     "L'etat  des  arts  en  Angleterre  et  L'Irlande." 
Rowe,  Nicholas.     "Poems."     Dr.  Johnson's  "English  Poets,"  Vol.  26. 
Ruskin,  John.    "Modem  Painters,"  2  vols.     Brantwood  Ed.    London, 

1891. 
Salaman,  Malcolm  C.     "Old  Engravers  of  England."     London,  Cassell 

&  Co.,  1907. 
Sandby,  Thomas.     "Thomas  and  Paul  Sandby." 
Savage,  Richard.     Dr.  Johnson's  "EngHsh  Poets,"  Vol.  45. 
Scott,  John.     "Poems."     Anderson's  "British  Poets,"  Vol.  11,  Pt.  2. 
Shairp,  J.  C.     "On  the  Poetic  Interpretation  of  Nature."     Boston, 

1890. 
Shaw,    Rev.    Mr.     "Tour  to   the   West  of  England."      Pinkerton's 

"Collection,"  Vol.  2. 
Shenstone,    William.     "Poems."     Dr.    Johnson's    "English    Poets," 

Vol.  52.     "Unconnected  Thoughts  on  Landscape  Gardening,"  in 

"Works."     3  vols.     London,  1764-1769. 
Sieveking,  Albert.     "Gardens  Ancient  and  Modem,"  1899. 
Smart,  Christopher.     "Poems."     Chalmers'  "English  Poets,"  Vol.  16. 

"Song  to  David."     Clarke's  "Less  Known  British  Poets,"  Vol.  3. 


376  NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

Smith,  Mrs.  Charlotte.     ''The  Old  Manor  House." 

Smollett,  Tobias.     "Works."  6  vols.     London,  1890. 

Somer\ille,    WUliam.     "Poems."     Dr.    Johnson's    "English    Poets," 

Vol.  47. 
Spratt,  Thomas.     "Poems."     Dr.  Johnson's  "English  Poets,"  Vol.  9. 
Stephen,    Leslie.      "English   Thought  in    the    Eighteenth   Century." 

2    vols.     London,  1887. 
Stepney,  George.     "Poems."     Dr.  Johnson's  "English  Poets." 
Sterne,  Laurence.     "Works."     Ed.  James  P.  Browne.     2  vols.     Lon- 
don, 1885. 
Swift,  Jonathan.     "Poems."    Dr.  Johnson's  "English  Poets,"  Vols. 

39  and  40. 
Switzer,    Stephen.      "The    Nobleman,    Gentleman,   and   Gardener's 

Recreation,"  1715  (as  " Ichnographia  Rustica"  1718). 
Symonds,  J.  A.     "Essays  Speculative  and  Suggestive."     London,  1893. 
Taine,  H.  A.     "Voyage  en  Italie."     Paris,  1893. 
Temple,    Sir    William.     "Works."     2    vols.     Ed.    Jonathan    Swift. 

London,  1831. 
Thompson,  William.     "Poems."     Anderson's  "British  Poets,"  Vol.  10. 
Thomson,  James.     "Poetical  Works."   2  vols.    Aldine  Ed.,    London, 

1867. 
Tickell,  Thomas.     "Poems."     Dr.  Johnson's  "English  Poets,"  Vol.  26. 
Veitch,  John.     "The  Feeling  for  Nature  in  Scottish  Poetry."     2  vols. 

Edinburgh,   1887. 
Waller,  Edmund.     "Poems."    Dr.  Johnson's  "English  Poets,"  Vol.  8. 
Walpole,  Horace.     "Works."     5  vols.     London,  1789. 
Warton,  Joseph.     "Poems."     Clarke's  "Less  Known  British  Poets," 

Vol.  3.     Dodsley's  " Collection,"  Vol.  3.     "An  Essay  on  the  Genius 

and  Writings  of  Pope."     2  vols.     London,  1806. 
Warton,  Thomas.     "Poems."     Anderson's  "British  Poets,"  Vol.   11, 

Pt.  2. 
Watts,  Isaac.     "Poems."    Dr.  Johnson's  "English  Poets,"  Vol.  46. 
Whateley,  Thomas.     "  Observations  on  Modem  Gardening."     London, 

1798. 
Whitehead,  William.     Anderson's  "British  Poets,"  Vol.  11,  Pt.  2. 
Whitman,  Alfred.     "The  Print  Collector's  Handbook,"  George  Bell, 

1901. 
Winchilsea,    Lady    (Anne   Finch).      "Miscellany   Poems   on   Several 

Occasions.     Written  by  a  Lady,"    17 13.     ''The  Poems  of  Anne, 


INDICES  377 

Countess  of  Winchilsea."     Ed.  Myra  Reynolds.     The  University 

of  Chicago  Press,  1903. 
Wordsworth,  William.     "Poetical  Works."     New  York,  1889. 
Wright,  Thomas,  Esq.     "The  Life  of  Richard  Wilson,  Esq.,  R.  A" 

London,  1824. 
Yalden,  Thomas.     "Poems."     Dr.  Johnson's  "English  Poets,"  Vol.  10. 
Young,  Arthur.     "Tour  in  Ireland."     Pinkerton's  "Collection,"  Vol. 

3.     "Tour  through  Southern  Counties."     London,  1772.     "Tour 

in  Ireland."  2  vols.     London,  1780.     "A  Farmer's  Tour."   4  vols. 

London,  1771. 
Young,  Edward.     "Poems."     Dr.  Johnson's  "English  Poets,"  Vols. 

50,  5h  52. 


GENER.\L  INDEX 


Addison,  Joseph,  8,  21,  25,  31,  ^s>  45> 

52,  80,  82,    83,    203-4,    252,  255, 

264,  265. 
Akenside,  Mark,  12,  19,  30,  47,  112, 

123-27,     147,    331,    350,    355-63 

(passim). 
Alexander,  William,  322. 
Allan,  David,  314. 

Amherst,  The  Hon.  Alicia,  247,  256. 
Amory,  Thomas,  9,  208-9,  232,  235, 

328,  342,  344- 
"Anecdotes  of  Painting"  (Walpole), 

262,  274,  278,  284,  310,  322. 
"Apollo's  Edict"  (Swift),  35. 
"Appleton House,  Upon"  (Marvell), 

37>  38,  80. 
Armstrong,  John,  32,  45,  59,  78,  112, 

121,  329,  339,  343,  346, 
Armstrong,    Sir   Walter,    282,    298, 

306,  308. 
Arnold,  Matthew,  62,  63. 
Attiret,  Pere,  271. 

Bacon,  Francis,  248,  256,  264,  265. 

Badeslade,  Mr.,  248. 

Bage,  Robert,  216. 

Bailey,  J.  T.  H.,  320. 

"Ballads,"  40,   159-61,  363. 

"Bard,  The"  (Gray),  135,342. 

Barlow,  Francis,   285. 

Barret,  George,  312,  313,  325,  342. 

Barrington,    Mr.,    252. 

Beattie,  James,  147,  167-73,  222, 
331,  333)  337»  342,  344,  345,  346, 
349,  353,  356,  358,  359,  361,  3^3- 

Becket,   Isaac,    277. 

Beckford,  William,  215,  317. 

Beechey,  Sir  Thomas,  284. 


Bellers,  William,  291-92,  310,  342. 

Biese,  Alfred,  xv,  xvii,  13,  14,  321. 

Birch,  W.,  300. 

Blackmore,  Richard,  42. 

Blair,  Robert,  30,  44,  112,  128-29, 

158. 
Blake,  William,   147,   152,   177-80, 

222,  342,  344,  362. 
Blomfield  and  Thomas,  247,  255. 
Blumner,  Hugo,  48. 
Bol,  Cornelius,  284. 
Boswell,    James,    241. 
Boul,  Philip,  284. 
Boulton,  William,  305,  306,  308. 
Bowles,  W.  L.,  142,  147,  199-202, 

335,  342,  350,  3^3- 
Boydell,  John,   293,  300,  311,  312, 

341,342. 
Boyse,  Samuel,  112,  118-19,  354. 
Brand,   John,    224,   327. 
Bray,  Mr.,  241,  242-43. 
Bridgeman,  Thomas,  259-60. 
"Brief  Description  of  the  Orkneys" 

(Brand),  224-25. 
"British   Painters"    (Cunningham), 

294,  296. 
Brooke,  Henry,  212. 
Brooke,  Mrs.,  211,  222,  352. 
Brooke,  Stopford,  xx. 
Brooking,   Charles,    288. 
Broome,  William,  19,  20,  21,  26. 
Brown,  John,  147-48,  227,  232,  235, 

240,  241,  323,  328,  337,  338,  342, 

344. 
Brown,    Lancelot,    265-69. 

Browning,  Mrs.,  62,  63. 
Bruce,  Michael,   147,   161-63,  331, 
348,    350,    356. 


378 


INDICES 


379 


Brj'dall,  Robert,  294. 

Buck,  Samuel,  289. 

"Buncle,  Life  of  John,"  9,    208-9, 

222,  328. 
Burney,  Fanny,  215. 
Burns,    Robert,    147,    179,    194-95, 

222,  333,  334,  342,  347,  348,  349, 

353.    357,   3^3- 
Burroughs,  John,  xx. 

Bushe,  Mr.,   225. 

Butler,  Samuel,  34. 

Butts,  John,  294. 

Byrne,  William,  300,  301. 

'•'Caleb  Williams"  (Godwin),  216. 

Canot,  P.  C,  288,  300. 

"Castle  of  Indolence"  (Thomson), 

85,  322. 
"Castle    of    Otranto"     (Walpole), 

212. 
"Chace,    The"    (Somerville),    112, 

ii3>  155- 
Chambers,    Sir  William,    271-72. 

Charlanne,    Louis,    246. 

Chaucer,  Geoffrey,  xix,  40,  62,  63. 

Chinese  Influence,  268,  271-72. 

"Clarissa  Harlowe,"  205. 

Classical  Period,  subdivisions,  1-2; 
preference  for  city  life,  2-7;  dis- 
like of  grand  or  terrible  in  Nature, 
7;  mountains  7-15;  ocean,  15-18; 
winter  18-19;  dislike  of  remote 
or  mysterious,  19;  sky,  19-23; 
pleasure  in  gentler  forms,  24; 
description  traditional  and  bookish, 
25-27;  similitudes,  27-35;  sub- 
ordination of  nature  to  man, 
36-39;  poetic  diction,  39-46; 
imitative  character  of  poetry, 
46-53;  man  the  supreme  interest, 
53-5?;    summary,   57. 

Cleveley,  John,  313,  322. 

Cleveley,   Robert,   314. 


Coleridge,  S.  T.,  v,  62,  63,  120,  121, 

199.  345,  349,  364. 
Collins,  William,  xix,   112,   121-23, 

146,  329,  335,  337,  344,  345,  346, 
3(>3- 

Congreve,  William,  19,  26,  30,  36. 
Constable,  John,  vi,  294,  304,  307, 

317,321. 
"Constable,    Memoir    of    the    Life 

of  John"  (C.  R.  Leslie),  304,  307. 
Cooper,    J.    G.,    112,    127-28,    343, 

356,  358. 
"Cooper's  Hill"  (Denham),  32,  80. 
"Country  Walk,  The"  (Dyer),  102, 

106,  107,  330,  332. 
Coventry,    Francis,    112,    132,    206, 

261,    342,    345. 
Cowley,  Abraham,  i,  2,  7,   20,  21, 

29,  30,  31,  32,  34,  37,  41,  42,  45. 

55,  56. 
Cowper,  William,  xix,  xx,  62,  64,  88, 

147,  173,  184-94,  196,  222,  266; 
in  General  Summary  passim. 

Cozens,  Alexander,  292,  311, 
Cozens,  John  Robert,  292,  317-18, 

342. 
Crabbe,  George,  68,  79,   105,   147, 

18&-84,  333,  342. 
Cradock,  Joseph,  239,  323. 
Cumberland,  Richard,  147,  176-77, 

241. 
Cunningham,  Allan,  294,  296,  314. 
"Cyder"  (J.  PhiUps),  11,  20,  59,  60, 

146,  155. 

Dalton,  Dr.  John,  112,  138-39,  146, 
226,     232,     240,    241,    340,    347, 

350- 
Danckerts,    Hendrik,    284. 

Davenport,  Cyril,  277,  280. 

"David  Simple"   (Sarah  Fielding), 

205. 

Dayes,    Edward,    316. 


38o 


NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 


"Delices  de  la  Grande  Bretagne  et 
de  rirlande,"  248. 

Denham,  John,  i,  7,  11,  32,  80. 

"Description  of  the  Western  Islands 
of  Scotland"  (Martin),  224. 

"Descriptive  Poem,  A"  (Dalton), 
138,  226,  241. 

"Deserted  Village,  The"  (Gold- 
smith),    166. 

Davis,  Anthony,  300,  311,  312,  322, 

342. 
"Diary  of  John  Evelyn,"  8,  9,  247. 
Diction,    20-24,    39-49^    60,    92-93, 

99-100,  loi,  105,  109,  124. 
Downing,  A.  J.,  263. 
Dr>'den,  John,  i,  2,  4,  15,  19,  29,  30, 

3h  33>  34,  40,  41,  42'r43>  45,  46, 

47,  50,  51,  121,  342. 
Duck,  Stephen,  11 1. 
Dyer,  John,  30,  31,  33,  42,  45,  72, 

101-4,  109,  III,  112,  117,  175;  in 

General  Summary  passim. 

"Eclogues"  (Gay),  64,  66. 
"Eclogues"  (Virgil),  51,  66. 
Edwardes,    Edwards,    298. 
"  Eighteenth  Century  Colour  Prints" 

(Frankau),  280. 
"  Eighteenth   Century,    English  Lit- 
erature of  the"  (Perry),  xx,  12. 
"Eighteenth        Century,       English 

Thought  in  the"  (Stephen),  xx, 
"Eighteenth    Century,    History    of 

England  in  the"  (Lecky),  xx,  14. 
"Eighteenth  Century  Literature,  A 

History  of"  (Gosse),  xx,  64,  163. 
"Elegy  in  a  Country  Churchyard" 

(Gray),    133-35- 
Elliott,  Mr.,  300. 
"Emily  Montague"  (Mrs.  Brooke), 

211-12,    222. 
"England     and     English     People" 

(Miller),  262. 


"England,  Fine  Arts  in"  (Britton), 

300. 
"England,  The  Art  of"   (Ruskin), 

303- 
"  Englischen      Litteraturgeschichte, 

Drei  Studien  zur"  (Fischer),  xx. 
"English  Literature,  An  Illustrated 

History  of"  (Gosse  and  Garnett), 

274. 
"English  Masters,  Old"  (Van  Dyke), 

282. 
"English  Poets"  (Ward),  61. 
"English      Romantic      Movement, 

The"  (Phelps),  xx,  133. 
"English     Water-Colour     Painters, 

The  Earlier"  (Monkhouse),  290, 

292,  313,  315,  317,  318. 

" Engravers  of  England,  Old"  (Sala- 
man),   28,   285. 

Engravers.  See  under  Becket, 
Byrne,  Canot,  Elliott,  Green, 
McArdell,  Major,  Mason,  Ravenet, 
Reynolds,  Rooker,  Smith,  Vivares, 
Watson,  Watts,  WooUett. 

"Enthusiast,  The"  (Warton),  139, 
140,  141,  145,  332. 

"  Entwickelung  des  Naturgefiihls, 
Die"  (Biese),  xvii,  13,  14,  18,  21, 
321. 

"Epistle,  Fourth"  (Pope),  258,  272, 
328. 

"Essays  Speculative  and  Sugges- 
tive" (Symonds),  xx,  24. 

"Etat  des  arts  en  Angleterre" 
(Rouquet),    287. 

"Euphorion"  (Lee),  xx,  24,  160. 

"Evelina"   (Burney),   215. 

Evelyn,  John,  8,  55,  247,  265. 

"Evergreen,  The,"  75,  332. 

Falconer,  Robert,  16-18,  21,  44. 
"  Farbenzeichnungen   bei  den  rom- 
ischen  Dichtern"  (Bltimner),  48. 


INDICES 


381 


V^ 


Farington,    Joseph,    311,    315,    316, 

342. 

"Ferdinand  Count  Fathom"  (Smol- 
lett^, 207. 

Fielding,  Henn%  118,  205. 

Fielding,  Sarah,  205. 

"Fleece,  The"  (Dyer),  30,  31,  loi, 
102,  103,  104,  155,  331,  342. 

Fletcher,   A.    E.,   308. 

Fletcher,  Beaumont,  296,  298,  303. 

"Fool  of  Quality"  (Brooke),  212. 

Ford  Collection  of  Wilson's  pictures, 
302. 

"Forest  Scenery"   (Gilpin),  313. 

Fox,  Charles,  321. 

Frankau,  Julia,  280. 

"Fresh  Fields"  (Burroughs),  xx. 

Fulcher,  G.  W.,  305. 

Gainsborough,  Thomas,  278,  281- 
84,  304-9,  311,  315,  320,  328. 
For  books  on,  see  under  Sir 
Walter  Armstrong,  Boulton,  Ful- 
cher,  Home. 

Galleries,  Art:  British  Museum  Print 
Room,  290,  292,  293,  300,  302, 
311,  318;  Duh^^ch,  274,  279,  286, 
302;  Glasgow,  302;  Hampton 
Court,  275,  277,  286;  Manchester, 
302;  National,  274,  279,  286,  288, 

290,  296,  364,  306,  319;  South 
Kensington,    281,    285,    288,    289, 

291,  292,  302,  304,  313,  316,  317, 
318,  319;  Wallace,  282,  286; 
Whitworth  Institute  (Manchester), 
289;   Royal  Academy,  296. 

"Garden,  Kensington"  (Tickell),  42. 

Gardening    Exhibition,    249. 

Gardens,  xviii,  132,  133,  208,  231, 
238,    242-43,    261-72. 

Gardens,  Books  on.  See  under 
Amherst,  Attiret,  Bacon,  Barring- 
ton,      Blomfield     and     Thomas, 


Chambers,  Coventry,  Downing, 
Evelyn,  Goldsmith,  Hazlitt,  Howe, 
Langley,  Lawson,  London,  Mason, 
Nichols,  Repton,  Shenstone,  Sieve- 
king,  Switzer,  Temple,  Walpole, 
Whateley. 

Gardens,  Oriental,  271-72. 

Gardens,  Ruins  in,  270-71. 

Garth,  Dr.  Samuel,  21,  24,  25,  46. 

Gay,  John,  6,  20,  21,  29,  30,  45,  51, 
59,  64-68,  73,  75,  77,  78,  83,  92, 
114,  121,  167,  288;  in  General 
Summary  passim. 

Geikie,  Sir  Archibald,  xx. 

"Gentle  Shepherd,  The"  (Ramsay), 

73,  75,  76,  77,  314,  Z2>T- 
Gilpin,  Sawrey,  313. 
Gilpin,  William,    103,   227,   235-39, 

241,  268,  269,  313,  316,  327,  328, 

343,357- 
Girtin,   Thomas,  318. 
Goldsmith,  Oliver,  xix,  147,  165-67, 

212,  262,  265,  271,  zzz- 
Goodwin,   Gordon,   280. 
Gosse,  Edmund,  xx,  i,  61,  64,  120, 

127,    163,    274. 
Gower,  Lord  R.  S.,  279,  280,  281. 
Graeme,  James,  147,  155-56. 
Graves,    Algernon,    310. 
■Gray,  Thomas,  xix,  46,  $^  112,  121, 

132,  133-36,  146,  147,  172,  176, 

2^c>-33,  235,  241,  310;  in  General 

Summary  passim. 
Green,  Valentine,  280. 
Greene,  Matthew,  112,  116,  146. 
Greenhill,    John,    276. 
"Grongar  Hill"  (Dyer),  42,  72,  102, 

103,  104,  105,  106,  107,  349. 
"Guardian,  The,"  82,  253,  256,  259, 

349- 

Hagley  Park,  261,  262. 
Hamilton,  Mr.,  225,  262. 


382 


NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 


Hamilton,  William,  xviii,  112,  117- 

18,  35o»  352,  354,  356,  359- 
Hanscome,   Elizabeth,   xx. 
Hassel,  Mr.,  244. 
Hastings,  Thomas,  298,  302. 
Ha wkes worth,    John,    210. 
HazHtt,  William,  2,  256. 
Hearne,  Thomas,  315,  322,  32 5- 
"Hermsprong"  (Bage),   216. 
Highmore,   Joseph,   277, 
Hill,  Aaron,  5,  121. 
Hill,  Joseph,  185. 
"History  of  Lady  Julia  Mandeville" 

(Mrs.  Brooke),  211, 
Homer,  xix,  17,  39,  54- 
Hoppner,  John,  284. 
Horace,  49,  51,  98,  113,  121. 
Home,  H.  P.,  283. 
Houseman,  Mr.,   244. 
Howe,  Walter,  265. 
Howell,  James,  8. 
Hudson,    Thomas,    277. 
Huet,  D.  P.,  256. 

Hughes,  John,  19,  20,  21,  30,  32,  37. 
Humboldt,  Alexander  von,  xv,   12, 

54,321- 
"Humphrey     Clinker"     (Smollett), 

213-14,  289. 
Hutchinson,  Mr.,   10,   227,   240-41, 

324- 
"Hymn"  (Thomson),  113,  354. 

Ibbetson',  J.  C,  316. 

Inchbald,    Mrs.,    216. 

"Influence  franjaise  en  Angleterre" 

(Charlanne),  246. 
Ireland,  225,  228,  230,  294,  295. 
Irwin,   Viscount,    265. 

Jago,  Richard,  112,  131,  147,  269, 

342,  348,  349- 
Jameson,  Mrs.,   281. 
Jervas,  Charles,  277. 


Johnson,  Dr.  Samuel,  3,  10,  109,  121, 
122,  209-10,  224,  241,  242,  338. 

"Johnson,  Life  of  Dr.,"  3,  10. 

"Jonathan  Wild"  (Fielding),  205. 

"Joseph  Andrews"  (Fielding),  205. 

"Journal  of  a  Tour  to  the  Hebrides" 
(Boswell),    241. 

"Journey  through  England" 
(Macky),  225. 

"Journey  to  the  Hebrides"  (John- 
son), 241. 

"Julia  de  Roubigne"  (Mackenzie), 
215. 

Keats,  John,  v,  62,  63,  127,  339. 
"Kent,  Views  of"  (Badeslade),  248. 
Kent,  William,  140,  255,  256,  259, 

260,  261,  264,  268,  328. 
Kip  and  Knyff,  248,  249. 
Klenze,  Camillo  von,  xx. 
Kneller,  Sir  Godfrey,   276-77,  278, 

327- 
Knight,  R.  P.,  266-68,  317. 

"Kosmos,"  XV,  12,  55,  321. 

Lake  District,  The  English,  10,  14, 
138-39, 148,  150,  176,  226-30,  231, 
232,  234-35,  238,  241-42,  243, 
244,  292,  295,  307-8,  310,  312, 
315,  316,  321,  323,  324. 

"Lakes,  An  Excursion  to  the" 
(Hutchinson),    10,    240-41, 

"Lakes,  A  Guide  to  the"  (West), 
241. 

"Lakes,  A  Journal  in  the"  (Gray), 
232,    241,    310. 

Lambert,  George,  290. 

Lambert,  James,  312. 

Landscape  Backgrounds.  See  under 
artist's  names:  Beechey,  Gains- 
borough, Highmore,  Hoppner, 
Hudson,  j;  Jervas,    Kneller,    Lely, 


INDICES 


383 


Mytens,  Oliver,  Opie,  Raeburn, 
Reynolds,  Richardson,  Romney, 
Vandyck,  Wissing. 

Landscape  Painting  from  1660  to 
iSoo:  period  1660-1707,  284-87; 
period  1707-17 55,  287-95;  period 
1755-1800,  295-320;  artists  in 
foreign  lands,  321-22;  domi- 
nance of  foreign  models,  322-26. 
See  also  under  names  of  artists; 
Alexander,  Allan,  Barlow,  Barret, 
Bellers,  Bol,  Boul,  Boydell,  Buck, 
Cleveley,  Constable,  Cozens,  Danc- 
kerts,  Dayes,  Devis,  Farington, 
Fox,  Gainsborough,  Gilpin, 
Girtin,  Hearne,  Ibbetson,  Lam- 
bert, Lankrink,  Looten,  Lorraine, 
Loutherbourg,  Mengs,  Monamy, 
Morland,  Norris,  Pars,  Pether, 
Place,  Pocock,  Poussin,  Rogers, 
Rosa,  Runciman,  Ruysdael,  Sand- 
by,  Scott,  Serres,  Smith,  Streater, 
Sybrecht,  Taverner,  Turner,  Van 
de  Velde,  Vandiest,  Van  Wyck, 
Vernet,  Verzagen,  Webber,  Wil- 
son, Wootten,  Zucarelli. 

Landscape  Painting,  Books  on. 
See  under  following  authors; 
Armstrong  (Sir  Walter),  Baily, 
Biese,  Boulton,  Brydall,  Cunning- 
ham, Davenport,  Fletcher  (A.  E.), 
Fletcher  (Beaumont),  Frankau, 
Fulcher,  Goodwin,  Gower,  Graves, 
Hastings,  Home,  Leslie,  Manson, 
Monkhouse,  Nettleship,  Peter 
Pindar,  Reynolds,  Rouquet, 
Ruskin,  Salaman,  Sandby  (Wil- 
liam), Smith  (J.  T.),  Thornbury, 
Van  Dyke,  Walpole,  Whitman, 
Wright. 

Langhorne,  John,  147,  148-51,  344, 

349>  350,  352,  357,  358,  3^2>' 
Langley,  Batty,  257-58,  271. 


Lankrink,    Henry,    284. 

Latin,  Imitation  of,  46-51,  60,  98. 

Lawson,  William,  248. 

Leasowes,  262-63. 

Lecky,  W.  E.  H,,  xx,  14. 

Lee,  Vernon,  xx,  24. 

Lely,  Sir  Peter,  270,  275-76,  277, 
281,  284,  285. 

Le  Notre,  246,  247,  248,  327. 

Lennox,  Mrs.,   207. 

Leprade,  Victor  de,  xvi. 

Leslie,  C.  R.,  304,  307. 

"Letter  from  Keswick"  (Brown), 
14,  226-27,  241,  323,  328,  337, 
338. 

"Letters  from  Antrim"  (Hamilton), 
225. 

Letters  quoted:  Beattie,  170;  Bol- 
ingbroke,  6;  Brown,  14,  226; 
Burns,  194;  Cowper,  173,  184, 
185,  186;  Gainsborough,  305,  307, 
309;  Goethe,  14;  Gray,  172,  231; 
Howell,  8;  Lyttleton,  172;  Mon- 
tagu, 4;  Petrarch,  12;  Pope,  2,  3, 
6,  18,  19,  82,  256;  Thomson,  85, 
95,  96,  108;  Walker,  195;  Wal- 
pole, 255. 

Linton,  Sir  James  D.,  304. 

Logan,  John,  147,  163-64,  336,  339. 

London,  George,  246,  247. 

Longford,    Mr.,    325. 

Lock,  Rev.  John,  313. 

Lock,  William,  296,  298. 

Looten,   John,    284. 

Lorraine,  Claude,  264,  287,  291, 
294,  312,  322,  323,  324. 

Loutherbourg,  James  de,  314,  315. 

Lowell,  J.  R.,  2>Z^  348. 

Lyttleton,  Lord,  5,  7,  18,  26,  148, 
172,  261. 

McArdell,   J.,   277,    280. 
MacClintock,   W.    D.,   93. 


384 


NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 


Mackenzie,  Henr}',  213,  215,  352. 
McLaughlin,  Edward  T.,  xx,  13,  19, 

23- 
Macky,  Mr.,  225. 

Macpherson,  James,  xx,  147,  156-59. 

Major,   Thomas,   305. 

Mallet,   David,   3,   33,   45.   84,   85, 

107-9,  III,  112,  224;    in  General 

Summar)'  passim. 
"Man of  Feeling, The"  (Mackenzie), 

213. 
Manson,  James  A.,  320. 
Marriott,  Mr.,  27. 
Martin,  Mr.,  224. 
MarvelH-  Andrew,  2,  10,  34,  37,  38, 

80,  87. 
Mason,  I.,  291,  300. 
Mason,  William,  112,  132-33,  240, 

250,  255,  256,  263-64,  270,  323, 

324- 
"Mediaeval    Life   and    Literature" 

(McLaughlin),  xx,  13,  19,  24. 
Mendes,  Moses,  112,  130-31,  339. 
Mengs,  Raphael,  284. 
Mickle,    W.    J.,    147.    153-55;     in 

General  Summary  passim. 
Miller,  Hugh,  262. 
Milton,  John,  xvii,  xix,  2,  11,  30,  31, 

33,  44,  47,  62,  63,  89,  93,  121,  132, 

140,  142,  144,  156,  i6i,  200,  254, 

256,  264. 
"Minstrel,  The,"  167,  172,  173,  331, 

333^  346,  358,  361. 
"Modern    Painters"  (Ruskin),  xiv, 

23.  54. 
Monamy,  Peter,  288,  325. 
Monkhouse,  Cosmo,  289,  292,  313, 

315,  317,318. 
Montagu,  Lady  M.  W.,  18,  19,  265. 
Morland,      George,      285,     318-20. 

For  books  on,  see  under  authors: 

Bailey,   Manson,    Nettleship. 
Moor  Park,  250. 


Morel,  Leon,  201. 

Mountains,  8,  9,  10,  11,  12,  13,  14, 
15,  59,  65,  68,  77,  99,  104,  131, 
132,  135,  138-39,  140,  153,  156, 
162,  170,  176,  208-9,  213-14,  220- 
21,  226-27,  231,  237,  238,  239, 
240,  301,  307-8,  311,  312,  315, 
317-18,  321,  341-42,  349-50- 

"Mysteries  of  Udolpho"  (Radcliffe), 
219,  222. 

M)1;ens,    Daniel,    275. 

"Naive  und  sentimentalische  Dich- 

tung"    (Schiller),    xv. 
"Nature    in     German     Literature, 

Treatment  of"  (Batt),  xx. 
"Nature    in    Old    English    Poetry, 

Feeling  for"  (Hanscome),  xx,  11. 
"Nature  in  Scottish  Poetr}%  Feeling 

for"  (Veitch),  xviii,  18,  55,  81. 
"Nature    in    Works    of    Nicholas 

Lenau,     Treatment      of"     (Von 

Klenze),  xx. 
Nettleship,  J.  T.,  320. 
Nichols,  Rose  S.,  248,  251. 
"Night    Thoughts"    (Young),    21, 

30,  120,  361. 
"Nocturnal  Revery"   (Winchilsea), 

62,  337,  348,  354- 
Norris,  John,   293,   294. 

"  Observations  on  the  Faerie  Queen" 

(Warton),    145. 
"Observations       on       Picturesque 

Beauty"    (Gilpin),    268. 
Ocean,  15-18,  69,  99,  119-20,  154. 
"Ode  to  Evening"   (Collins),  329, 

345- 
"Old  English  Baron,  The"  (Reeve), 

214. 
"Old  Manor  House"  (Mrs.  Smith), 

217-19. 
Oliphant,  Mrs.,  277. 


INDICES 


38s 


Oliver,  Isaac,  274. 
Opie,   John,    284. 

Paltock,   Robert,   206. 
"Pamela"   (Richardson),   304-5. 
"Paradise  Lost"  (Milton),  30,  31,  44, 

46,    254,    334. 
Parnell,  Thomas,  12,  21,  26,  31,  ^2, 

45,  48,  59>  68-71,  83,   106,   117, 

271;  in  General  Summary  passim. 
Pars,  William,  322. 
Pasquin,   Anthony,   324. 
"Pastorals"  (A.  Philips),  51,  60,  61, 

66,  67,  80,  332. 
"Pastorals"  (Gay),  66-68. 
"Pastorals"  (Pope),  51. 
Pattison,  William,   59,   71-72,  331, 

358. 
Pennant,  Thomas,  233-35,  240,  241, 

344- 
Pennecuik,  Alexander,  9,  73,  225. 
Percy,  Bishop,  40,  159-61. 
"Peregrine  Pickle"  (Smollett),  207. 
Perry,  T.  S.,  xx,  12. 
Peter    Pindar.     See   Wolcot. 
"Peter  Wilkins"  (Paltock),  206. 
Pether,  Abraham,  316. 
Petrarch,  12. 
Phelps,  W.  L.,  XX,  133. 
Philips,  Ambrose,  3o»  35.  5i,  59,  60- 

61,  66,  82,  83,  332,  335,  339,  352, 

356. 
Philips,  John,  11,  20,  58,  59-60,  146, 

336,341,344,356. 
Pitt,    Christopher,    19,    20,   21,   42, 

45,  5°- 
Place,  Francis,  285. 

"Pleasures    of    the     Imagination" 

(Akenside),  12,  123,  124,  125,  126, 

33^,  361. 
Pocock,    Nicholas,    314. 

"Poetic   Interpretation  of  Nature" 
(Veitch),   xix,    59,   93. 


"Pompey    the    Little"    (Coventry), 

206. 
Pope,  Alexander,  xviii,  2,  3,  5,  12,  16, 

18,  26,  30,  32,  ss,  39,  40,  47,  48,  50, 

51,  52,  57,  61,  66,  80,  81,  82,  83,  98, 

III,  iij^i2i,  142^146,  253,  255, 

256,  258,  259,  264,  265,  272,  327. 
"Pope,    Essay   on"    (Warton),    81, 

142,  143,  147,  333- 
Portraiture,      Landscape      in.     See 

Landscape  Backgrounds. 
Potter,  Rev.  R.,  136-37,  336,  342, 

348,  349- 
Poussin,   Nicholas,    176,    262,    287, 

322,    323,    324.  i^i^_^ 

Price,  Sir  Uvedale,  267-6§r 

Prior,  Matthew,  23,'^i7  22,  26,  30, 

32,33- 

"Quixote,  The  Spiritual"  (Lennox), 
267,  270. 

Radcliffe,  Mrs.,   219-22,    241,   327, 

328,  334,  343,  344,  348,  357. 
Raeburn,   Sir  Henry,   284. 
Ramsay,   Allan,   xviii,   xix,   32,   59, 

72-77,    83,    113,    143,    146;     in 

General  Summary  passim. 
"Rasselas"  (Johnson),  209-11. 
Rathbone,  John,  316. 
Ravenet,  S.  F.,  288. 
Reeve,  Clara,  209-11. 
"Reliques     of     Ancient      Poetry" 

(Percy),  41,  159. 
Relph,    Joseph,    112,    128-29,    146, 

147,    241,    336. 
Repton,    Humphrey,    256,    268-69, 

327- 
Reynolds,  Sir  Joshua,  278,  279-81, 
283,  303.  For  books  on,  see 
under  authors:  Davenport,  Fran- 
kau,  Goodwin,  Gower,  Salaman, 
Whitman. 


386 


NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 


Reynolds,  S.  W.,  280. 
Riccaltoun,  Robert,  59,  78,  79,  346. 
Richardson,  Jonathan,  277. 
Richardson,  Samuel,  102,  204,  205, 

207,  327. 
"Ride  over   Skiddaw"   (Radclifife), 

241. 
Robertson,   Mr.,    245. 
"Robinson  Crusoe"  (Defoe),  204. 
"Roderick     Random"      (Smollett), 

205. 
Rogers,  Mr.,  294. 
"Romance  of  a  Forest"  (Radcliffe), 

219,  222. 
Romney,  George,  284. 
Rooker,  E.  and  M.,  300,  301. 
Rosa,  Salvator,  177,  262,  264,  287, 

322,  323>324- 
Rouquet,  M.,  287,  288,  295. 
Rousseau,  J.  J.,  14,  141- 
Rudworth,  Mr.,  244. 
Runciman,  Alexander,  293. 
Ruskin,  John,  xiv,  23,  54,  303,  318. 
Ruysdael,   Jacob  I.,    264,  285,  287, 

323.  324- 

Salaman,  M.  C,  280,  286. 
Sandby,  Paul,  290,  293,  311-12,  313, 

34i»342. 

"Sandby,  Thomas  and  Paul"  (Sand- 
by),  311- 

Sandby,  William,  311. 

Savage,    Richard,    19,    29,    109-11, 

33^>  340,  346. 

Scotland,  224,  231,  233,  234,  241-42, 
244,  285,  287,  293,  294,  295,  312, 
315,318,320,338,  349- 

"Scotland,  Second  Tour  in"  (Pen- 
nant), 233. 

Scott,  John,  19,  147,  173-76,  180, 
193,  222,  310;  in  General  Sum- 
mary passim. 

Scott,  Samuel,  288,  310,  325. 


Scott,  Sir  Walter,  v,  xvii,  xx,  262, 

349»  364- 
"Seasons,  The"  See  Thomson. 

"Sentiment     de     la     nature,     La" 
(Laprade),  xvi, 

"Sentimental  Journey,  A"  (Sterne), 
213. 

Serres,  Dominic,  313. 

Serres,  J.  T,  314,  325. 

Seymour,  James,  288. 

Shairp,  J.  C,  xix,  59,  77,  93. 

"Shakespeare  to  Pope,  From" 
(Gosse),  I. 

Shakspere,  William,  xvi,  xvii,  xviii, 
xix,  41,  121,  142,  200. 

Shaw,  Rev.  Mr.,  244. 

Shelley,  P.  B.,  v,  xvii,  15,  62,  63,  121, 
180,  339,  345,  346. 

Shenstone,  William,  5,  7,  i  9  21,  26, 
37>  45,  47>  48,  112,  113-16,  143, 
146,  147, 175,  262-63,  269;  in  Gen- 
eral Summary  passim. 

"Shepherd's  Week,  The"  (Gay), 
64,  66. 

"Shipwreck,  The"   (Falconer),   17, 

21,  45- 

Sheridan,  P.  B.,  28. 

Sieveking,  A.  F.,  249,  257. 

"Simple  Story,  A"  (Inchbald),  216. 

"Sir  Charles  Grandison"  (Richard- 
son),    207-8. 

"Sir  Launcelot  Greaves"  (Smollett), 
210. 

"Sir  Roger  de  Coverley"  (Addison), 
203. 

Smart,  Christopher,  146, 147, 151-53- 

Smith,  Mrs.  Charlotte,  216-19,  334. 

Smith,  George  (of  Chichester),  291, 

324- 
Smith,  J.  R.,  277,  280. 

Smith,  J.  T.,  319. 

Smith,     Thomas    (of  Derby),    290, 

292,  3io>325- 


INDICES 


87 


Smollett,    Tobias,    205,    207,    210, 

213-14,  289,  342,  350. 
Somerville,  William,  21,  30,  32,  41, 

42,112-13,  146,  147. 
"Song  to  David"  (Smart),  151. 
Southcote,    Philip,    261. 
Southey,  Robert,  128,  199. 
"Spectator,  The,"  82,  252. 
Spenser,  Edmund,  xvii,  83,  121,  136, 

142,  264. 
Stephen,  Leslie,  xx. 
Sterne,  Laurence,   210,  213,  343. 
Streater,  Robert,  285. 
Stubbs,  George,  288,  311. 
"Studies  in  Poetry  and  Philosophy" 

(Shairp),  xx. 
Swaine,  Francis,  325. 
S\\-ift,  Jonathan,  35,  92, 
Suntzer,  Stephen,  254,  260. 
Sybrecht,  John,  284. 
Symonds,  J.  A.,  xx,  24,  29. 
"S>Tiiphones,  Les"  (Laprade),  xxi. 

Taine,  H.  A.,  56. 

"Task,   The"   (Cowper),    184,  185, 

187,  188,  189,  190,  191,  192,  266, 

361. 
"Tatler,  The,"  251. 
Taverner,  William,  289-90. 
Temple,  Sir  William,  249-50,  265. 
Tennyson,  Alfred,  66,  180. 
Theocritus,    51,    55. 
"Theology  in  the   English   Poets" 

(Brooke),  xx. 
"Theory  of    the  Earth"  (Burnet), 

9,  22. 
Thompson,      William,      112,     129- 

30- 
Thomson,  James,  xiv,  xvii,  xviii,  xix, 
XX,  32,  45,  46,  58,  59,  61,  64,  73,  78, 
79,  80,  81,  83-101,  ig6,  107,  108, 
io9,-'iii,  113,  119,  121,  130,  140, 
141,  142,  143,  167,  172,  174,  175, 


i90»  193.  196,  210,  272,  320,  322; 
in  General  Summar)'  passim. 

"Thomson,  James:  La  vie  et  ses 
oeuvres"  (Morel),  loi. 

Thornbury,  Weaker,  315. 

Tickell,  Thomas,  12,  21,  29,  42,  52, 
116. 

"Tom  Jones"  (Fielding),  118,  205-6. 

Tours.  See  under  Boswell,  Brand, 
Bray,  Brown,  Bushe,  Cradock, 
Gilpin,  Gray,  Hamilton,  Hassell, 
Houseman,  Hutchinson,  Johnson, 
Macky,  Martin,  Pennant,  Penne- 
cuik,  Robertson,  Rudworth,  Shaw, 
Walker,  West,  Young  (Arthur). 

"Trees,  Thirty-two  Species  of" 
(Alex.  Cozens),  311. 

"Tristram  Shandy"  (Sterne),  210. 

Turner,  J.  M.  W.,  vi,  304,  318,  320, 
327,  328,  343. 

"Types  of  Scenery  and  Their  Influ- 
ence on  Literature"  (Geikie),  xx. 

Unwin,  Rev.  William,  185,  186. 

Van  de  Velde,  the  Elder,  284,  286. 
Van  de  Velde,   the   Younger,    284, 

286,  287,  288,  325. 
Vandiest,  Adrien,  285. 
Vandyck,    Sir   Anthony,    274,    275, 

276,  277,  278,  279. 
Van  Dyke,  John,  282. 
Van  Wyck,  Jan,   285. 
"Vathek"  (Beckford),  215. 
Veitch,  John,  xviii,  11,  18,  55,  81. 
Vernet,  C.  J.,  2S4. 
Verzagen,  Henry,  284. 
"Vicar  of  Wakefield"  (Goldsmith), 

212. 
"Village,  The"  (Crabbe),  181,  182. 
Virgil,  263. 

Vivares,  Francois,  291,  310. 
"Voyage  en  Italic"  (Taine),  56. 


3^^ 


NATURE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 


Wales,  236,  239,  244,  293,  295,  300, 
301,  311,  312,  315,  316,  320,  323, 

349- 
Walker,  Mr.,  244. 

Waller,  Edmund,  i,  7,  10,  15,  20,  21, 

27.  29,  30,  31,  36,  37,  39,  43,  48, 

327- 
Walpole,    Horace,    212,    250,     254, 

255,  256,  259,  260,  262,  265,  274, 

275.     277,     278,    284,    306,    310, 

322. 
Warton,  Joseph,  81,  in,  112,  134, 

i39-43»    146,    147.    i99>    200;    in 
General  Summary  passim. 
Warton,  Thomas,  112,  143-45,  344, 

346,    351- 
Watson,  Caroline,  280. 
Watts,  Isaac,  7,  20,  21,  30,  36,  50. 
Watts,  W.,  300. 
Webber,  John,  322. 
West,  Mr.,  227,  241,  324. 
Whately,  Thomas,  265. 
Whitehead,   William,    112,    145-46, 

332,  356. 
Whitman,  Alfred,  280. 
"Wilson,   Etchings   after   Richard" 

(Hastings),  302. 
Wilson,  Richard,  287,  296-304,  309, 

310,  311,  314,  315,  316,  328,  342. 

For   books   on  Wilson  see  under 

authors:       Beaumont      Fletcher, 

Ruskin,  Wright. 


"Wilson,  Studies  and  Designs  by" 
302. 

"Wilson,  Thirty-seven  Sketches  and 
Designs  by, "  302. 

Winchilsea,  Lady,  vi,  23,  59,  61-64, 
83,  117,  249,  271;  in  General 
Summary  passim. 

Wissing,  William,  276. 

Wolcot,  John,  314. 

Woollett,  William,  301,  302. 

Wootten,  John,  288,  325. 

Wordsworth,  William,  v,  xvii,  xviii, 
xix,  XX,  6,  7,  19,  23,  27,  s^,  37,  38, 
45>  50)  58,  61,  63,  64,  68,  72,  80, 
81,  93.  97.  loi.  105.  118,  121,  124, 
125,  126,  134,  136,  139,  143,  148, 
151,  165,  169,  172,  177,  180,  190, 
191,  193,  239,  244,  301,  320;  in 
General  Summary  passim. 

Wright,  Richard,  313. 

Yalden,  John,  11,  20,  31,  42. 
Young,    Arthur,    228-30,    232,    241, 

344,  348,  355- 
Young,  Edward,  5,  15,  16,  20,  21,  22, 
30,  31,  89,  112,  119-21,  147,  359, 
361,  3^3- 

"Zeitschrift  fiir  Litteraturge- 

schichte."     xvii. 
"Zeluco"  (Moore),  216. 
ZucareUi,  A.,  297. 


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